Hillary and Bill Clinton lobbied MSNBC's parent company, General Electric, to drop a contributor who made a prostitution metaphor in reference to their daughter Chelsea, according to a new book from Daniel Halper, an editor with the conservative Weekly Standard. The book debuts Tuesday, but Politico's Hadas Gold already has the details:
"According to a source close to the situation, the Clintons called people on the board of NBC's parent company General Electric to say, 'Well, this is outrageous, how NBC News and MSNBC are handling this, and we need to do something about it,'" Halper writes. "Before long, GE's chairman Jeffrey Immelt was on the phone with Jeff Zucker, the president and CEO of NBC Universal at the time, and (former NBC News president) Steve Capus asking, 'What the hell is going on over there? Why are my board members talking about the reporter, and why is your reporter referring to Chelsea as a prostitute?'" [Politico]
Chelsea Clinton campaigned on her mother's behalf in 2008, leading MSNBC's David Shuster to remark that it seemed she was "sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way." Outraged, the Clinton camp threatened to pull out of an upcoming MSNBC-sponsored debate. The network eventually apologized and suspended Shuster.