The thing is....CNN has no real cash to offer up a decent contract to either player. MSNBC is probably using up what they have left in the pot. In CNN’s present condition...I’d expect mostly unknowns, and newspaper journalists to be the ‘experts’ that CNN relies upon.
It was a given that Gibbs and Axelrod would end up at PMSNBC. They were on Morning Joe all the time anyway, all throughout the election. I suspect the plan to hire them was made long before now, somewhere during the election lead up the deal was cut. Axelrod, Gibbs, and PMSNBC were thicker than thieves from the gitgo.
There can be no question that MSNBC loses money and that the parent company simply writes the checks on its behalf.