Pekary, who left the liberal cable news network in August, dropped the bombshell about her former employer’s alleged election bias in a series of tweets on Sunday, after Yang teased her appearance on his podcast.
“Actually, I just reviewed my journal. On 4/25/19, I was told that we were never to pursue Andrew for an interview on our show (along with several others),” Pekary tweeted, adding that the names of welcome and unwelcome guests were “dictated” from above without any explanation given.
Pekary’s admission has sparked a guessing game as to who else might have been barred from appearing on the show, and whether the same rules applied to the network as a whole.
“Are you legally bound around this stuff, or can you post a bunch of screenshots for us?” one asked.
“Do you know if other shows on MSNBC had similar lists? Was it common to not invite presidential contenders on the network?” another tweeted.
Yang, who now works for CNN as a political commentator, appeared to be taken aback by the revelation.
While the show or the network itself has yet to comment on Pekary’s claim, it’s not the first time the cable channel faces accusations of muting non-mainstream political voices.
Late newsman Ed Schultz, who worked for MSNBC before joining RT America, claimed in a 2018 interview that he was barred from covering Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid announcement five minutes before he was to come on air. Schultz said that he received a last-minute call from then-president of the network, Phil Griffin, who told him he was not “covering this.”
MSNBC’s sister channel, CNBC, raised eyebrows earlier this year after they replaced Yang’s face with that of a similarly-named businessman, and the face of another Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard with that of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand during their segment on election fundraising. The channel eventually apologized for the mistake.
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