'Today' Star Savannah Guthrie Responds to NBC News Controversy

Savannah Guthrie addressed NBC News' dramatic hiring and firing of Ronna McDaniel on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night. The Today Show anchor did not sugarcoat the issue or shy away from it when Colbert asked. She said: "No, I mean look: It was an unpleasant few days at our network, no question about it."

NBC News raised some eyebrows last month when it announced that McDaniel, former head of the Republican National Convention, had been hired as a new on-air contributor. McDaniel publicly promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. She even tried to use her power as head of the RNC to reverse the results of the election and had presided over the censure of Republican congressional reps Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who refused to play along. Many NBC and MSNBC anchors publicly protested McDaniel's hiring, with Rachel Maddow dedicating nearly her entire show to the subject.

A few days later, NBC News announced that McDaniel had been terminated in response to this outcry. While some of the anchors and other executives had been aware of what was going on behind the scenes, Guthrie said that she "was not in the know." She told Colbert: "I knew nothing about it. And look, the bosses made a decision. They reversed that decision. They acknowledged a mistake, and we moved on."

Guthrie continued: "And the only thing I'll say about it is, number one, I didn't have anything to do with it. But look, I think the instinct to try to have a diversity of opinions and a diversity of perspectives and voices as we cover an election is the right instinct. And it's complex, and it's made more complex by the politics that we have right now."

NBC News Group Chair Cesar Conde was the one to announce McDaniel's firing in a memo to staffers last week. He took responsibility for her hiring in the first place, explaining that he hoped to represent different political views on the network. However, critics pointed out that not only was McDaniel's rhetoric about the election completely false, it may have made a dangerous contribution to the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

McDaniel was dropped by her talent agency on the day of her firing. A source close to her told Deadline that she is now looking into legal options over this snafu. It's unclear if she still intends to seek work as a news media pundit.