THE TIME HAS COME FOR ALL SECRETS TO BE BROUGHT INTO THE LIGHT: Rachel Maddow invites Scott Pelley to MS NOW after his departure from 60 Minutes, revealing never-before-disclosed secrets

“It is a fully joined fight at this point,” Rachel Maddow said

Rachel Maddow; Scott Pelley.Credit : 

Getty(2)

Rachel Maddow is standing by Scott Pelley.

Shortly after the veteran 60 Minutes correspondent was fired from CBS on Tuesday, June 2, Maddow revealed during MS NOW’s special election coverage that she hopes Pelley will land “right here,” referring to her home network.

During her latest TV appearance, Maddow said she “made a crack” about the firing being part of a “Hungarian, oligarchic-style takeover of the media,” an accusation she said she was “sort of deadly serious” about.

“There’s nobody who is more acutely attuned to the value of a free press than those who are trying to take it away,” Maddow said. “And when the president baldly says, ‘I am going to use the power of the state in order to get the media that I want,’ and he lines up oligarchic friends in order to do that for him. Again, there’s no pretense. There’s no saying this is for any other reason.”

She added, “There’s nothing else going on at CBS News other than what we can see is happening at CBS News. And I don’t know where Scott Pelley will land. Frankly, I hope he lands right here.”

Maddow, 53, said she hopes Pelley “stays on TV” despite the firing. “I hope he’s on TV tomorrow. And I hope that everybody in journalism and everybody who values a free press figures out ways to outmaneuver the people who are trying to take the free press from us.”

She added, “But it is a fully joined fight at this point. And there’s no, I just don’t think there’s any pretense that anything else was happening here.”

PEOPLE has reached out to a rep for CBS News for comment.

Pelley’s removal from 60 Minutes was announced via a termination letter on Tuesday, when the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton, accused the correspondent of “ambush,” “hostility” and “misconduct.”

In the letter, obtained by PEOPLE, the EP accused Pelley of showing “performative display[s] of hostility” and having “no interest in contributing to the future success of the show.” The firing follows Pelley allegedly clashing with Bilton during a tense staff meeting at 60 Minutes, per both The New York Times and The Guardian.

In response to the termination, Pelley accused executives of currying favor with President Donald Trump.

“When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects,” Pelley, 68, wrote in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. The waste is heartbreaking.”

On May 28, the newsmagazine parted ways with journalists Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski also fired executive producer Tanya Smith and replaced her with Bilton.  During a Monday, June 1, staff meeting, Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering” 60 Minutes, per multiple reports.

In his statement after the firing, Pelley said 60 Minutes “lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause.” He also said he was “deeply moved” by the support he and other journalists at 60 Minutes have received since.

“I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives,” he wrote. “I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.”

According to Variety, Weiss addressed Pelley’s firing, telling staffers on a conference call Wednesday morning, June 3, “We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.”