MSNBC Host Says ‘It Doesn’t Really Matter Who Is in the Oval Office’

Liberal reporter and fashion icon Eugene Daniels suggests (without evidence) he wasn’t personally devastated by Kamala’s loss

Claim: “[It] doesn’t really matter who is in the Oval Office for me. My job is to find out information.”

Who said it: Eugene Daniels, the former Politico reporter and Beltway fashion icon who was recently hired to cohost a weekend show on MSNBC. Daniels made the comments in a fawning New York Times profile that described him as “the face of the White House press corps” that is “under attack” by the Trump administration.

Context: Daniels was supposed to be the “breakout star” of the 2024 election. He ended up being one of the biggest losers. Daniels was widely praised (by other journalists) as an “expert in all things Kamala Harris.” Having covered the vice president since the start of the Biden administration, he was well-positioned when Harris took over as the Democratic nominee. If she’d won the election, Daniels would have become a hot commodity on cable news, given his status as an unofficial Harris spokesman. In that sense, Daniels is slightly different from his future MSNBC colleagues Symone Sanders and Jen Psaki, who were explicitly paid to speak on behalf of powerful Democrats. In any event, Daniels would have been a fixture at state dinners and other White House events, allowing the self-described “walking Beyoncé encyclopedia” to showcase his “bold” fashion sense.

Most casual observers would describe his reporting on the Harris campaign as excessively adulatory and promotional. He gushed about the “exhilarating” and “insane” level of “excitement” in the early days of Harris’s candidacy. He argued Harris was the best debate opponent Trump had ever faced since 2015. Generally speaking, Daniels diligently regurgitated the campaign’s talking points with pizzazz. He commended himself for being “tough” on Harris during a panel discussion hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists. For example, he asked her if Trump and J.D. Vance’s comments about Haitian migrants in Ohio were “a case of irredeemable racism that can’t be mitigated by any rational action.” Daniels’s reporting output since Trump took office, including a boring interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) about how Democrats are fighting back against the administration, appears to suggest it actually does matter that a Republican is president.

On Daniels’s watch as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, the Trump administration took away the group’s power to determine which media outlets were allowed to cover presidential events. Daniels selected comedian Amber Ruffin to perform at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Few normal Americans have ever heard of Ruffin. She apparently writes jokes for Seth Meyers, the liberal activist and former comedian. She coauthored the New York Times best-selling book You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism. She has described President Trump as a “toddler with his pants down.” Daniels called Ruffin an “ideal fit for this current political and cultural climate.” 

Verdict: Based on the available evidence, Daniels’s suggestion that he wasn’t personally and professionally devastated by Harris’s defeat is simply not credible. We rate this claim Four Clintons.