Former MSNBC host Ed Schultz ripped his former employer for being “in the tank for Hillary Clinton” and suggested his firing in 2015 was due to his support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Schultz, who now works for RT, told National Review’s Jamie Weinstein in an interview posted last week, about an episode that backs up his claim MSNBC didn’t like his support for Sanders.
Sanders was launching his presidential campaign on May 26, 2015, in Burlington, Vt., and Schultz said his network was the only one planning to cover it live.
Five minutes before Sanders was scheduled to give his speech, Schultz received a call from MSNBC president Phil Griffin, who said, “You’re not covering this.”
The discussion got contentious as Schultz tried to explain why he felt it was important to cover Sanders, he said, but Griffin wouldn’t budge, forcing him to cover something he referred to as “totally meaningless.”
That turned out to be devastating floods in Oklahoma and Texas, as well as the unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray. In the end, Schultz got to air Sanders’ speech live when it began.
Then, Schultz gave Weinstein his opinion on why he thought he was canned shortly thereafter.
“I think the Clintons were connected to [NBC News chief] Andy Lack, connected at the hip,” Schultz said. “I think that they didn’t want anybody in their primetime or anywhere in their lineup supporting Bernie Sanders. I think that they were in the tank for Hillary Clinton, and I think that it was managed, and 45 days later I was out at MSNBC.”
“I thought it stunk,” he said, proceeding to list what unfolded during the campaign — Donna Brazile leaking questions to Clinton, the superdelegates who were forced to vote for Hillary, the mainstream media supporting her over Sanders as evidence that the fix was in to “deep-six Bernie.”
Schultz lasted six years with MSNBC bouncing around from primetime, to weekends and then late afternoon before getting the ax after his ratings dropped precipitously.
Now that he’s working for RT, which stands for Russia Today, Schultz no longer criticizes Russian president Vladimir Putin for his “nasty” human rights record and says it’s the best job and “the most freedom I’ve ever had,” claiming that he’s doing “real journalism,” not opinion like his job at MSNBC.
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