Former CNBC reporter Melissa Francis declined Monday to name the cable network manager who she said “silenced” her for “disrespecting” President Obama in her reporting on Obamacare.
Francis, who is now a Fox Business Network anchor, opted to keep the name to herself despite a derisive response from a CNBC spokesman who called her claim “laughable.”
“I’ve decided not to reveal the person,” Francis said, adding that the CNBC response was “so glib and so sarcastic and so condescending. They’re laughing at their viewers.”
She did say the manager who reprimanded her was not CNBC President Mark Hoffman.
She stood by her earlier claim that she was “called in after one show in particular and told that I was disrespecting the office of the president.”
“You’re disrespecting the office because [Obama’s] the one out there, really selling it,” she claimed to have been told by the unnamed manager.
A CNBC spokesperson also stood fast Monday. “It is laughable,” CNBC’s Vice President of Public Relations Brian Steel told the Washington Examiner.
The Examiner reached out to Fox Business for more details on Francis’ allegations, which she addressed later on camera.
On Friday, Francis said the reason she was “silenced” by her former supervisors at CNBC is because of her reporting on the likely long-term costs of Obamacare.
“It’s shocking, but it actually doesn’t surprise me because when I was at CNBC, I pointed out to my viewers that the math of Obamacare simply didn’t work. Not the politics by the way, but just the basic math. And when I did that, I was silenced,” Francis said.
“I said on the air that you couldn’t add millions of people to the system and force insurance companies to cover their pre-existing conditions without raising the price on everyone else. I pointed out that it couldn’t possibly be true that if you like your plan, you can keep it,” she added.
Francis said she was summoned to a meeting with an unnamed supervisor who reprimanded her for “disrespecting the office of the president.”
CNBC responded immediately to Francis’ initial claim, saying “that’s laughable, but we take notice, because as the fastest-growing network in prime time, we’re always on the lookout for high quality comedy writers and actresses.”
CNBC is home to several noted financial analysts, who are also very opinionated, including Jim Cramer, Larry Kudlow, Steve Liesman and Rick Santelli, the man commonly credited with launching the Tea Party.
However, these personalities are also positioned on the business network as commentators and pundits and not as straight news reporters. The role Francis filled before departing for the Fox Business Network was that of a straight news reporter.
CNBC is owned by NBC Universal, which is the parent company to MSNBC, Telemundo and NBC News.
