Republicans are so concerned about a possible Hillary Clinton run for the presidency in 2016 that the RNC has fired a preemptive strike—warning NBC and CNN, which both reportedly have Clinton film projects in the works, that they will not partner with them on 2016 primary debates unless they kill the film projects.
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus sent letters to both networks issuing the warnings about the Clinton projects, which have not yet begun production. Over the weekend, NBC announced that Diane Lane will play the title role in its four-hour miniseries, “Hillary.”
“It’s appalling to know executives at major networks like NBC and CNN who have donated to Democrats and Hillary Clinton have taken it upon themselves to be Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives,” Priebus said in a statement. “Their actions to promote Secretary Clinton are disturbing and disappointing.”
Priebus said if the networks do not agree to pull their programming prior to the start of the RNC’s Summer Meeting on Aug. 14, he will “seek a binding vote stating that the RNC will neither partner with these networks in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates they sponsor.”
The CNN documentary is slated for theaters and television, while NBC’s miniseries would air on television.
The RNC released the contents of the letters Priebus sent to Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, and NBC chair Robert Greenblatt. He accused the networks of giving “special treatment” to Clinton ahead of a presidential bid for 2016 that most observers consider a virtual certainty.
By focusing their programming on Clinton, Priebus said, CNN and NBC are being “unfair” to other potential Democratic candidates, such as Vice President Joe Biden and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, and to the Republican candidates.
“Secretary Clinton has been in the public eye for well over two decades, so you certainly cannot claim that a documentary about her political career is any sort of public service or eye-opening journalism on an unknown individual,” Priebus wrote. “Quite the opposite is true: it would be most accurately described as an in-kind donation.”
