According to a bombshell report from The Washington Free Beacon, MSNBC host Al Sharpton’s National Action Network nonprofit was paid $500K by the Kamala Harris campaign before the Democratic Party presidential nominee sat down with him for an interview on October 20th – just weeks before the election.
MSNBC denied prior knowledge of the payment.
“MSNBC was unaware of the donations made to the National Action Network,” a network spokesman said. According to WFB, he declined to say whether the network would take any action, indicating that it does not comment on “personnel matters.”
But an MSNBC insider says the network is quietly panicking over the potential scandal.
“No one’s surprised that anybody at MSNBC was rooting for Harris. This feels like another level of nonsense. Like, you’re kidding me, right? This is weird,” a current MSNBC employee reacted to Fox News Digital.
“Harris could have given Al Sharpton an interview, and it would have gone the same way,” they continued. “But what are you paying for?… There’s no way that this can’t seem weird.”
“Everybody knows who Al Sharpton is… but this feels like a bridge too far. A big bridge too far… This is not landing well,” the MSNBC staffer said.
“This has a bit of a dirty feel to it… These things happen and they don’t bounce around MSNBC all that much. Like people just don’t care,” they continued. “This one feels, I’d say, there’s a deeper disappointment. There’s a sense of like, ‘Ugh, we don’t need this. This feels kind of grifty and gross.'”
“There is a sense among the people I’ve spoken to that this feels like something wrong and that something should be done about it,” the MSNBC employee said. “I don’t know what that something is… That’s a lot of money! That’s not a small matter… It just doesn’t sit well with people.”
