Report suggests that MSNBC president may resign following Trump's inauguration
A new report suggests that Rashida Jones may be stepping down from her role as president of MSNBC as ratings at the left-leaning network collapse.
However, one observer suggested that Jones' decision to quit might be driven by the prospect of having to cover President-elect Donald Trump in office.
Multiple sources claim that Jones is on the way out
Breitbart senior writer John Nolte made that argument in a column on Wednesday, pointing to an article published by The Wrap.
The website cited a claim from Status News journalist Oliver Darcy. He cited "unnamed sources close to the matter" who said that Jones might leave her post at some point after Trump is inaugurated.
This is despite the fact that a spokesperson for Jones said she has no plans to step down while NBCUniversal representatives offered no comment.
Two sources confirm this @oliverdarcy report that MSNBC president Rashida Jones is "mulling a departure" early next year 👇🏼 At the same time, as he wrote, "a spokesperson for Jones denied that she is eyeing an exit." https://t.co/i9QQuqZYsT
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 4, 2024
Meanwhile, CNN contributor Brian Stelter said in a social media post that two of his own sources also believe Jones is preparing for an exit.
MSNBC's rating have tanked since Trump won last month
The Wrap pointed out how MSNBC has seen the size of its primetime audience drop by more than half since last month's election.
Figures put out from November 27 showed the network with an average of just 361,000 prime time viewers compared to 1.34 million leading up to Election Day.
The decline in viewership is not limited to prime time shows, as the number of people tuning in to watch "Morning Joe" has also gone down by 43%.
Yet according to Nolte, MSNBC's woes are in part due to how Jones positioned the network vis-à-vis an expected loss by Trump.
Nolte says Jones' "short-term thinking is idiotic"
"Jones spent the last three-plus years setting MSNBC up for failure by pushing all her network’s chips into the middle of the table betting on Donald Trump’s fall," he wrote.
"He'd either go to prison, get assassinated, or lose to Kamala Harris. This kind of short-term thinking is idiotic," Nolte continued.
"Most network execs run around wondering how to hold onto their audience. They do not run around alienating half the country and making the other half feel like suckers," he went on to add.