A former aide to President Obama has been dropped as a political analyst at MSNBC and NBC News over a conflict of interests, just hours after it was announced she had signed with both news networks.
Stephanie Cutter, who served in the Obama administration and worked on the president’s 2012 re-election campaign, was slated to join both MSNBC and NBC News as a hard news political analyst, Politico Playbook reported early Friday morning.
“She will contribute exclusively on a range of topics across all platforms including Meet the Press, TODAY, Nightly and MSNBC,” the report stated.
On the same day they announced her hiring, the New York Times reported Cutter will oversee an effort by the White House to see Obama’s nominee to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Merrick Garland, appointed to the Supreme Court.
“[Stephanie] Cutter … will oversee the efforts by the new group, to be called the Constitutional Responsibility Project,” the Times reported.
The group is “essentially a miniature version of Obama for America, the formal name of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign operations in 2008 and 2012, but with a new mission: to serve as an umbrella organization for the constellation of liberal groups that typically wage fights on behalf of Democratic court nominees,” the report added.
For NBC and MSNBC, news of Cutter’s involvement in the White House’s push to see Garland confirmed to the Supreme Court posed a serious problem. One so great, in fact, that the news network dropped her as a political analyst in the same day that it announced she had been hired.
“We look forward to Stephanie’s insights on our air during this election year, but she will appear as a guest and not as an analyst due to her leadership role in the battle over the President’s Supreme Court nomination,” a network spokesperson said in a statement.
Prior to being signed and then un-signed by MSNBC and NBC News, Cutter co-hosted CNN’s failed reboot of “Crossfire.” After that show’s cancellation, Cutter stayed on with CNN as an analyst, and appeared every now and again as a contributor on “The Lead With Jake Tapper.”
There has been a great deal of concern raised recently about conflicts of interest at news networks, as reporters continue to uncover financial and political ties among anchors and contributors.
For dropping Cutter immediately over her connection to the White House’s Supreme Court push, NBC won kudos Friday from Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple.
“By ending Cutter’s analyst deal before it started, NBC News/MSNBC has taken a stand in favor of its viewers, who deserve independent voices, if indeed there are any left out there,” he wrote.
Spokespersons for NBC News and MSNBC did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
