This week, Rachel Maddow extended multiple invitations to former 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, encouraging him to join her at MS NOW.
Maddow, 53, made her appeal while addressing the news of Pelley’s dismissal on Tuesday. She was speaking during a special segment covering the primaries, where her comments were part of the live broadcast.
“I’m not sure where Scott Pelley will end up, but I hope he comes here. I’d love to see him on TV with us tomorrow,” Maddow, a leading figure at MS NOW, expressed during the broadcast.
Earlier, she humorously commented on the new 60 Minutes executive, Nick Bilton, who had a publicized disagreement with Pelley. Bilton was accused of lacking qualifications and being overly influenced by CBS management. Maddow quipped that this situation was akin to “a blatant, Hungarian-style oligarchic takeover” of the network.
She then directly addressed Pelley on air, saying, “Come work with us, Scott Pelley. If you’re watching, we’d love to have you. Although, truth be told, I don’t actually have the authority to hire you,” she added with a laugh.
“Oh, but you do!” panelist Jen Psaki chimed in, sharing in the laughter.
Stephanie Ruhle, at this point, chimed in: ‘If MS [NOW] takes a vote, we vote, “Yes.”‘
Maddow, 53, reacted to news of longtime CBS star Scott Pelley’s firing this week while covering elections in multiple states
Pelley, 68, was fired Tuesday night following a blow-up with Bilton about the latter’s 60 Minutes vision during a Monday morning meeting at the newsmagazine’s Manhattan office. In addition to his lengthy 60 Minutes tenure, Pelley anchored Evening News for six years
The rest of the panel, which was rounded out by Michael Steele and Chris Hayes, all agreed.
Pelley, 68, was fired Tuesday night following his clash with Bilton over the latter’s vision for the show.
Maddow maintained that Pelley’s firing was an instance of censorship.
‘There’s nobody who is more acutely attuned to the value of a free press than those who are trying to take it away,’ Maddow said.
‘And I hope that everybody in journalism and everybody who values a free press figures out ways to outmaneuver the people who are trying to take the free press from us.
‘But it is a fully joint fight at this point. I think any pretense that anything else was happening here is over.’
Pelley, meanwhile, accused editor Bari Weiss of ‘murdering’ 60 Minutes, and Bilton of having ‘slender qualifications’ for the job. Weiss, 42, was brought in by then-new Paramount CEO David Ellison in October.
Bilton, 49, responded by attempting to move the discussion along before being met with more pushback from Pelley.
Maddow made her case to viewers and costars Chris Hayes, Stephanie Ruhle, Jen Psaki, and Michael Steele
The conversation reportedly grew so tense that Bilton eventually had to tell Pelley that he would not be ‘intimidated,’ outlets that obtained the recording reported.
CBS’ managing editor, Charles Forelle, also had to step in twice to say Pelley was being ‘rude.’
Pelley responded with not one but two statements, one released after he was fired Tuesday and another after CBS News head Bari Weiss’s explanation to staff during a Wednesday conference call.
The two essentially traded jabs and undermined each other’s version of events leading to Pelley’s dismissal.
Weiss told staffers: ‘Despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways
‘We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.’
She also said that she was ‘only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect,’ and that Pelley had ‘broken’ that cardinal rule.
Pelley responded: ‘I’m saddened to see the transcript of the CBS News morning editorial meeting. Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true.
She also joked the newly hired 60 Minutes executive who clashed with Pelley the day before his firing, Nick Bilton, was ‘part of [a] sort of bald-faced, Hungarian-style oligarchic takeover of [CBS]’
Pelley took shots at Bilton on Monday by framing him as unqualified and beholden to CBS and Paramount management
‘In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to “find a way back,” as Weiss said in the editorial meeting.
‘At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution. Weiss and Tom Cibrowski were openly hostile from the start,’ Pelley continued.
‘No CBS executive, at any time, suggested “a way back.” To say so now is disingenuous. And they know it.’
The Daily Mail approached CBS News for comment. Pelley worked at the network for 37 years.
MS NOW was rebranded from MSNBC this past summer, as part of parent company Versant’s split from NBCUniversal.
