The co-hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” did not mince words on Monday over the network’s hiring of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a contributor.

“We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring but, if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons — including, but not limited to … Ms. McDaniel’s role in Donald Trump’s fake elector scheme and her pressuring election officials to not certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone,” Joe Scarborough said at the top of the broadcast, noting they only learned about McDaniel’s addition to the network through press reports on Friday.

“To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage,” Mika Brzezinski added. “But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier.”

“We hope NBC will reconsider its decision,” Brzezinski continued, adding: “It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”

The concept of hiring former political officials, both elected and appointed, is hardly a new phenomenon. George Stephanopoulos, once White House communications director under the administration of Bill Clinton, anchors “Good Morning America” and “This Week” for ABC News. The same network counted ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie among its contributors from 2018 until he launched his Republican presidential bid last year. Former Trump officials Reince Priebus and Mick Mulvaney are contributors at CBS News, while Alyssa Farah Griffin is a co-host of ABC’s “The View” and a commentator on CNN. MSNBC in recent years has hired two Biden-era press officials, Jen Psaki and Symone Sanders-Townsend, as on-air talent. Some of those hirings have been met with backlash.

McDaniel's hiring was "unanimously" supported by the network's leadership, a person familiar with the deliberations told Spectrum News. And NBC has said that it’s up to MSNBC personalities and producers about whether to have McDaniel appear on their shows -- which, the individual added, is not a new policy for the network.

But the comments at the top of MSNBC’s flagship program highlight the internal backlash over McDaniel’s hiring.

On “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Chuck Todd, the program’s former moderator, told Kristen Welker, the current host, that "our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.”

“There’s a reason why there are a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination,” Todd said.

Welker opened the program by announcing that she would be interviewing McDaniel in her first interview since stepping down as chair of the RNC, while offering the disclosure that it “was scheduled weeks before it was announced” that she’d be joining the network as a “paid NBC News contributor.”

“This will be a news interview,” Welker emphasized. “And I was not involved in her hiring.”

Welker pressed McDaniel on a number of topics related to the 2020 presidential election, including a phone call to Michigan officials she was reportedly a part of urging canvassers not to certify the state’s election results and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

McDaniel said during Sunday’s interview that Biden won the 2020 presidential election “fair and square” — “he’s the legitimate president,” she said — though she added the caveat that “I do think it’s fair to say there were problems in 2020.” (There is no evidence of widespread election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, a statement verified by officials on both sides of the aisle. Claims of fraud brought by Trump and his allies were rejected in courts nationwide, including the U.S. Supreme Court.)

And while McDaniel said that she does “not think people who committed violent acts on Jan. 6 should be free” and convictions stemming from the insurrection “should stay” — breaking with Trump, who has vowed to pardon Jan. 6 rioters — she said she doesn’t hold Trump responsible for the attack.

She also denied the accusation that the call to Michigan officials — during which she said, per a recording obtained by The Detroit News, “Do not sign [the election certification] … we will get you attorneys.” — was a pressure campaign.

“I regret the fact that people are being threatened for doing their job in this country,” McDaniel said, baselessly charging a double standard for Republican and Democratic election workers. (Threats against election workers have skyrocketed since the 2020 election, regardless of party affiliation.)

After the interview, during a roundtable discussion, Todd said that he did not “know what to believe” when asked for takeaways from McDaniels’ interview.

“She is now a paid contributor by NBC News,” Todd said. “I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn't want to mess up her contract. She wants us to believe that she was speaking for the RNC when the RNC was paying for it, so she has credibility issues that she still has to deal with. Is she speaking for herself or is she speaking on behalf of who's paying her?”

Todd offered praise to his colleague for doing “everything you could do” with the interview, given the circumstances.

“You got put into an impossible situation, booking this interview, and then all of a sudden the rug's pulled out from under you,” Todd said to Welker. “You find out she's being paid to show up. That’s unfortunate for this program, but I am glad you did the best that you could.”