Political analyst Matthew Dowd says MSNBC reacted to a “right wing media mob” in firing him for commentary about hateful rhetoric that aired on the network shortly after early reports this week that conservative activist Charlie Kirk had been shot.
In a Substack post Friday, Dowd admitted to being “down and a bit disheartened.” The former aide to George W. Bush, who was a political analyst at ABC News for nearly 15 years before joining MSNBC in 2022, detailed a long-running grudge that President Donald Trump had against him since his first term.
Dowd was fired after his commentary on Kirk, in which he said “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which ultimately lead to hateful actions.” MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler called the remarks insensitive and apologized to viewers. Dowd apologized, too, saying he didn’t mean to imply Kirk was to blame for the violence that killed him.
At the time he spoke, Dowd wrote, he was responding to reports of a shooting at Kirk’s appearance, when it wasn’t even clear that Kirk has been hit. He said on the air that Kirk was a divisive and polarizing figure. He thought “how could anyone disagree with this?” he wrote on Substack. “I guess I was naive.”
“The right wing media mob ginned up, went after me on a plethora of platforms, and MSNBC reacted to that mob,” Dowd wrote on Substack. “Even though most at MSNBC knew my words were being misconstrued, the timing of my words forgotten … and that I apologized for any miscommunication on my part, I was terminated by the end of the day.”
But people at MSNBC knew right away that his words were inappropriate, and the decision to fire Dowd was not the result of outside pressure, said an executive at the network, who spoke under condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to talk about personnel issues.
A corporate message on Dowd’s firing
Reverberations over the firing continued Friday, with a memo sent to Comcast employees by Brian Roberts, CEO of the company that owns MSNBC; Comcast President Mike Cavanagh; and Mark Lazarus, CEO of Versant, the spinoff company that is to take over MSNBC ownership — if it receives Trump administration approval.
Without using Dowd’s name, it referred to the firing and said his comments were “at odds with fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the points of view of those who have differing opinions. We should be able to disagree, robustly and passionately, but, ultimately with respect. We need to do better.”
The letter urged employees to “engage with respect, listen, and treat people with kindness.”
The dismissal and Trump’s previous criticisms of Comcast and MSNBC raise questions about whether he will take further actions to constrain TV networks he views as adversarial. In an August social media post, the president wrote that it was “so much fun to watch their weak and ineffective owner, ‘Concast,’ headed by dopey Brian Roberts, hopelessly and aimlessly flailing in the wind in an attempt to disassociate itself from the garbage that they created!”
In his Substack post, Dowd said he had been very critical of Trump and the Republican party while at ABC News, and said Trump and White House staff called the head of ABC News to try and get him fired. “ABC News folks came to me a number of times after that and tried to get me to not be so critical,” he said.
Asked about that, White House communications director Steven Cheung said, “Matthew Dowd is an irrelevant piece of s-— loser who has debased himself for what he disgustingly said in the aftermath of Wednesday’s tragedy.”
___
AP writer Josh Boak in New York contributed to this report.
