Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus on Friday sent a letter to NBC News informing the network that their partnership for a presidential primary debate scheduled for February was suspended, citing sister network CNBC’s “bad faith” handling of its own debate this week.
Priebus has threatened to sever a relationship with peacock properties twice before.
The RNC chair sent similar letters to both NBC and CNN in August 2013 demanding that the networks drop planned film projects about Hillary Clinton or else lose their partnerships with the committee for debates in 2016. Priebus argued those productions were a “thinly-veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election.”
After the networks ignored Priebus’ demand, the committee passed a resolution barring the networks from holding 2016 debates. NBC ended up canceling its planned miniseries on Clinton a month later.
Then MSNBC drew Priebus’ ire with a tweet about a commercial that aired during the 2014 Super Bowl. “Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family,” the offending tweet read. Priebus informed MSNBC that no RNC staff would appear on the network until president Phil Griffin personally apologized. Griffin obliged, the staffer responsible for the tweet was fired and the organizations resumed their relationship.
NBC has said this time around that it plans to “work in good faith to resolve this matter with the Republican Party.” That gives the network roughly three months to get back in Priebus’ good graces before the scheduled Feb. 26 debate or else leave the event in the hands of the National Review.
This post has been updated.
