“You wouldn’t hire a made man, like a mobster, to work at a DA’s office, right?” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said this week of NBC’s decision to hire former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, a decision the network later reversed. “You wouldn’t hire a pickpocket to work as a TSA screener.”
But NBC does just that with another party: its pro-war stable of retired military generals and admirals who hold forth on wars and threats to national security. A partisan voice if there ever was one, the TV generals and admirals are all the more scandalous because the network presents them as objective “analysts” as they sit on defense industry and corporate boards that profit from forever wars, including ones not being fought by the United States directly. The conflict is not just tolerated by NBC, it is also never disclosed. (NBC did not respond to a request for comment on its current conflict of interest policies.)
“The U.S. needs to get involved in a leadership role here [in Haiti] and very quickly,” retired four-star Adm. James Stavridis said on the air earlier this month, speaking of the deteriorating situation. Stavridis calls for the deployment of a U.S.-led intervention force, warning of the consequences of inaction. “In the ’90s, we had waves of migration, refugee-driven, from Haiti,” he said.
The host, NBC News’s Gabe Gutierrez, to his credit, pushed back. “Admiral, you know this better than anybody else: The history of American intervention in the Americas has not always been that great,” he said. But the network, in giving Stavridis a platform — just as they would have done with McDaniel — doesn’t bother to mention that their “analyst” profits from the use of military force. For example, Stavridis serves as partner of the investment firm Carlyle Group, owner of major defense contractors and which lists the admiral among its Global Aerospace and Government Services Team.
Stavridis, the former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, serves as chief international security and diplomacy analyst for NBC News. But the network’s website does not divulge that he is a hired gun, nor any kind of disclosure of his outside affiliations. Stavridis also serves on or has served on the boards of Fortinet, a cybersecurity firm; Neuberger Berman Mutual Funds; McLarty Associates; Beacon Global Strategies; and Ankura, a consulting group. (Stavridis did not respond to a request for comment.)
Stavridis has appeared on the network to discuss Israel’s war on Gaza, but NBC does not disclose his affiliation with the Jewish Institute for National Security, a Washington-based national security think tank that advocates for closer military cooperation between the U.S. and Israel. JINSA’s website lists Stavridis as chair of its Gemunder Center’s U.S.-Israel Security Task Force.
Photo: Kevin Hagen/AP
In an NBC segment in February, Stavridis said that “the administration is going to have to consider strikes in Iran” if attacks from Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria continued.
When asked by “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker if it might be necessary to withdraw the roughly 3,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria in light of regional tensions, Stavridis balked.
“The last thing in the world we should do is pull them out,” Stavridis said. “This is a minimal presence doing good work: counterterrorism, working with the Iraqis against the Islamic State.”
Though Stavridis is pressing policy recommendations masquerading as dispassionate analysis, another official NBC military analyst has even been involved in a direct conflict of interest. In 2008, a sprawling New York Times exposé revealed that retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, while working as a military analyst for NBC, also worked for military contractor Defense Solutions. McCaffrey went on the air praising Army Gen. David Petraeus, then the commanding general in Iraq, but never disclosed that he was at the same time pushing Petraeus to buy 5,000 armored vehicles made by the same contractor.
“That’s what I pay him for,” the CEO of Defense Solutions told the Times.
As a consultant, McCaffrey was not required to adhere to NBC’s conflict-of-interest policies, the then-president of NBC told the Times.
“On NBC and in other public forums, General McCaffrey has consistently advocated wartime policies and spending priorities that are in line with his corporate interests,” the Times reported. “But those interests are not described to NBC’s viewers.”
NBC never suspended or terminated its relationship with McCaffrey, who is still a recurring guest on the network. (McCaffrey did not respond to a request for comment.)
In July, McCaffrey said in an interview with Andrea Mitchell that the Biden administration was “entirely correct” to send cluster bombs to Ukraine — a controversial weapon that is banned from use (the United States is not a signatory to the worldwide ban).
In February, in an interview with an NBC satellite station in Seattle, McCaffrey said that Congress’s failure to pass a military aid package for Ukraine “has a huge potential impact on U.S. national security.” Echoing Stavridis’s warning about Haitian refugees, McCaffrey said that if Ukraine loses the war, “we will see potentially 20 million refugees in Western Europe.”
During the interview, McCaffrey adopted an explicitly partisan position — the same dynamic proponents of firing McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair, sought to avoid.
“Our national security is at stake and this is a shameful behavior instigated by Mr. Trump and being responded to by House Republicans,” McCaffrey said.
Once again, McCaffrey’s potential financial conflicts are not disclosed. In 2021, he was appointed to the board of directors of defense contractor Juvare, which said that McCaffrey would provide guidance as the company expands its role in the federal and defense space.
McCaffrey also serves as president of his own consulting firm, BR McCaffrey Associates, which describes itself as striving to “build linkages” between federal officials and contractors.
Then there’s retired Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Twitty, hired by the network as a military analyst in 2022. Twitty serves as a senior adviser at the powerful Chertoff Group, helping military clients identify business opportunities, according to its website. He is also a senior adviser at the Roosevelt Group, which focuses on strategic communications, advocacy, and business development for the defense industry; and a board adviser at Dataminr, a social media monitoring and artificial intelligence company that contracts with the Pentagon.
The former deputy commander of U.S. European Command, Twitty is a frequent “analyst” explaining the war in Ukraine.
“Push forward, push hard, let’s get the funding in there,” Twitty advocated in December, pushing U.S. military aid. “I think it’s going to take years: so they will need sustainable funding and predictable funding for the long term.”
Twitty did not respond to a request for comment.
The potential for conflicts is not lost on staffers at NBC. “NBC will write checks for a revolving door of former intelligence and military brass quietly running interference for the defense industry but breaking on-air bread with a Trump ally and top Republican official merits a call to insurrection?” an NBC writer who requested anonymity for fear of professional reprisal told The Intercept. “Send in the troops!”
