Several MSNBC anchors, including Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, directly called out parent company Comcast for donating to help fund President Donald Trump’s controversial $300 million ballroom.
The White House revealed the list of donors last week, and it included Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, as well as Comcast, despite Trump’s repeated attacks on Comcast subsidiary NBC.
Discussing these companies on her Monday night show, Rachel Maddow called Comcast out by name, telling viewers, “For every corporation—like our parent company for another hot minute, Comcast—that wants to pay for Trump to take a literal wrecking ball, excuse me, I mean an excavator to the White House, those public-facing companies should know there’s a cost in terms of their reputation with the American people.”
“There may be a cost to their bottom line when they do things against American values, against the public interest, because they want to please Trump or buy him off, or profit somehow from his authoritarian overthrow of our democracy,” she continued.
“Protests may or may not move Donald Trump himself… but even if protest doesn’t move Trump directly, it constrains his power by moving the public-facing, consumer-facing people and entities that he has to enlist in what he’s trying to do.”
Maddow’s fellow MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell made a similar argument just a few hours later, also naming Comcast specifically in his critiques. “Comcast—the current but not-for-long owner of the company I now work for—doesn’t think it’s a big enough business,“ O’Donnell argued.
”Comcast is committed to nothing but Comcast.”
MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle also criticized her parent company, remarking last week that “there ain’t no company out there writing a check just for goodwill.”
Status News also reports that frustration with Comcast is spreading throughout NBCU News Group, with several staffers telling the outlet that employees were “both astonished and appalled” by the donation to Trump’s project.
One NBC News staffer told the outlet, “It’s unsettling to see our parent company buy into the pay-to-play of the Trump administration.”
Trump’s 90,000-square-foot ballroom, for which he demolished the entire East Wing of the White House, is expected to cost around $300 million—which is three times the originally announced $100 million estimate the president announced in July.
Trump has stated that the ballroom will be entirely privately funded with both his own money and a group of donors; Silicon Valley bosses, crypto kings and billionaire MAGA supporters have been lining up to contribute.
In addition to major tech companies and Comcast, donors to the project include Palantir, Lockheed Martin, Coinbase, T-Mobile and Union Pacific Railroad, as well as billionaires like former Marvel Entertainment chairman Isaac Perlmutter and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
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