MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow eviscerated her network’s parent company live on air for donating to Donald Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom project.
“For every corporation — like our parent company, for another hot minute, Comcast — that wants to pay for Trump to take a literal wrecking ball, excuse me, I mean an excavator, to the White House: those public-facing companies should know there’s a cost in terms of their reputation with the American people,” Maddow, who earns $25 million a year to host her show just once a week, said on Monday.
“There may be a cost to their bottom line when they do things against American values, against the public interest, because they want to please Trump or buy him off or profit somehow from his authoritarian overthrow of our democracy.”
Comcast made the donation amid scrutiny from the Trump administration over its reported interest in acquiring all or part of Warner Bros. Discovery, which just put itself up for sale.
Maddow, 52, who took a $5 million pay cut when her show moved to one day a week, urged viewers to continue protesting the ballroom.
Her fellow hosts, Lawrence O’Donnell and Stephanie Ruhle, have also called out Comcast on air, after the White House unveiled its list of donors to the project last week.
In addition to Comcast, major companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft were also revealed as backers of the gilded ballroom.
Earlier this month, Trump attacked Comcast’s billionaire CEO, Brian Roberts, on Truth Social.
He asked for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “to look into the license of NBC, which shows almost exclusively positive Democrat content,” after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced he was opening an investigation into the network’s relationships with affiliates.
Carr said that NBC and other networks are attempting “to extract onerous financial and operational concessions from local broadcast TV stations.”
In February, the FCC announced a probe into Comcast’s DEI initiatives and practices.
Comcast is set to spin off its traditional cable networks into an independent public company next month.
If Comcast is looking only at Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming assets, an acquisition after the November 15 split would make more sense for tax purposes.
Comcast-owned NBCUniversal offered a major sign to the industry showing its intent to double down on streaming this week, Status reported.
The company — which will soon no longer oversee MSNBC — was able to lure Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan away from David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance this week.
Maddow accused Comcast of trying “to please Trump or buy him off or profit somehow from his authoritarian overthrow of our democracy.”
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts was recently targeted by Trump on Truth Social.
Warner Bros. Discovery has reportedly already rejected three takeover offers from Paramount Skydance, which underwent its own merger earlier this year.
Warner Bros. Discovery is still gauging interest in its assets, which include HBO, HBO Max, and CNN.
