NBC News Terminates Mark Halperin’s Contract

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NBC News this morning confirmed to Deadline it has terminated Mark Halperin’s contract.

News comes days after CNN first reported claims of five women, who spoke on condition of anonymity, that veteran journalist Halperin had sexually harassed them when he was working for ABC News. He had been suspended from NBC News since that late Wednesday report.

Late Friday, Halperin issued an apology in which he acknowledged his “aggressive and crude” behavior towards women while at ABC. But, insisted Halperin, who joined MSNBC as senior political analyst in 2010 after working for Time and Bloomberg, he has had a “very different reputation than I had at ABC News because I conducted myself in a very different manner” – the result of “several years” of “weekly counseling sessions to work on understanding the personal issues and attitudes that caused me to behave in such an inappropriate manner.”

MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski set the stage for the unraveling of Halperin’s empire Thursday morning when she addressed the absence of the show regular at the top of the broadcast:

Now to a story that broke overnight involving someone you see around this table every day. CNN is reporting allegations regarding our friend Mark Halperin during his time at ABC News over a decade ago, unnamed sources detailing unwanted advances and inappropriate behavior. Halperin apologized for the pain his actions caused and said “I will take a step pack from my day-to-day work while I properly address the situation.”

Since then:

-Showtime, the network for which Halperin has co-hosted the buzzy political docu-drama series The Circus, announced it was “reevaluating” its relationship with him and the future of the program, then updated to say that if the show comes back, he won’t.

-HBO dropped plans to develop a project based on Halperin and and John Heilemann’s 2016 election post-mortem, explaining, “HBO has no tolerance for sexual harassment within the company or its productions.”

–Halperin’s publisher stuck a shiv in the book itself, saying “In light of the recent news regarding Mark Halperin, Penguin Press has decided to cancel plans to publish a book he was co-authoring on the 2016 election.” Penguin Press had, in March announced it would publish the book, on the heels of its success publishing their 2008 and 2012 campaign autopsies, “Game Change” and “Double Down.”

-UltraViolet, the women’s advocacy group that targeted Fox News’ advertisers after the NYT report on the millions spent by Bill O’Reilly and his employer to settle women’s harassment claims, took a victory lap after similarly urging Penguin and HBO to walk away from Halperin.

-CNN senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward tweeted that Halperin’s alleged behavior “was an open secret when I was at ABC for years – brave of these women to speak up.”

Twenty four hours later, the number of women making claims having more than doubled, Brzezinki updated Morning Joe viewers, ominously, telling them, “Over the past 24 hours there have been more disturbing reports regarding Mark Halperin’s treatment of younger female workers.

Behavior in these reports allegedly occurred one to two decades ago and now we’re looking at it.”

Brzezinski said,

“But we’re also witnessing a larger movement of women speaking up about sexual harassment, because the fear of being dismissed, or not believed, is melting away.”

CNN’s initial report documented claims of five women.

Halperin had responded in that CNN report with a statement, saying, “During this period, I did pursue relationships with women that I worked with, including some junior to me.”

He continued, “I now understand from these accounts that my behavior was inappropriate and caused others pain. For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologize. Under the circumstances, I’m going to take a step back from my day-to-day work while I properly deal with this situation.”

According to CNN, the harassment accusations from the anonymous women include propositioning employees for sex, kissing, and grabbing one’s breast without consent. Three women claimed that Halperin pressed his erection against their bodies. Halperin denied grabbing a woman’s breasts and pressing his genitals against these three women.

Halperin may be best known for co-authoring the bestselling book Game Change that was later adapted by HBO, with Julianne Moore playing Sarah Palin. He previously worked as the political director at ABC News, and these days is a frequent panelists on Morning Joe as well as Showtime’s The Circus.

The Halperin scandal capped an extraordinary week in which the number of women accusing screenwriter/director James Tobak of sexual harassment topped 300, while the number of women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape,topped 70, both United Talent Agency and WME announced they have dropped Bill O’Reilly in wake of a New York Times report he had personally settled a sex harassment allegation for $32 million, and the White House declared all of the women who accused President Trump of sexual harassment during the presidential campaign to be liars.