‘Grifty And Gross’: MSNBC Insider Reportedly Sounds Off On Sharpton’s $500,000 Kamala Harris Interview
By Robert McGreevy, Daily Caller News Foundation | November 27, 2024
An anonymous MSNBC employee sounded off to Fox News on Wednesday, the outlet claims, after MSNBC said they were “unaware” of a $500,000 donation Kamala Harris’s campaign made to MSNBC employee Al Sharpton’s nonprofit.
“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 unnamed insider told the outlet.
The Harris campaign donated $500,ooo to Sharpton’s National Action Network before the pair sat down for a friendly interview, The Washington Free Beacon reported, citing campaign finance documents.
The documents showed that the campaign made two separate $250,000 donations to the nonprofit prior to the Oct. 20 interview, one on Sept. 5 and the other on Oct. 1.
An MSNBC spokesperson told the Free Beacon the network was “unaware” of the donations, but declined to comment on whether Sharpton would be disciplined.
“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,” Fox’s MSNBC source said. “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.'”
The same source alleged that the network gives Sharpton “a wide berth” and that Sharpton is “not held to the same journalistic standard.”
The source claimed that the scandal stinks of a “pay-to-play” scheme. “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,” they told Fox. “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.”
The source reportedly doubted that Sharpton would face any ramifications.
“Generally speaking, people do things and they kind of get away with them at MSNBC, I mean, other than in the Me Too era,” the source told Fox.
The source also cast into doubt Sharpton’s credibility as a journalist.
“That kind of money should not be changing hands to people who are cosplaying being a journalist. Maybe that’s not a fair term because I don’t know, is he a journalist? I don’t know. But that just feels a little bit like pay to play, and it doesn’t feel right in an organization that we’re all still part of,” the source told the outlet.
Robert McGreevy is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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