MSNBC Formally Apologizes for Demeaning Tweet After Republican Party Boycott
The cable news network apologized Thursday for a tweet suggesting Republicans "hate" biracial families, which sparked a boycott from the Republican National Committee. The offending tweet from the network, posted Wednesday evening and since deleted, read "Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww the adorable newCheerios ad w/ biracial family. http//t.co/SpB4rQDoAR." RNC Chairman Reince Priebus sent a letter Thursday morning to network President Phil Griffin saying he banned all RNC staff from "appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC," and in a separate memo encouraged GOP elected officials and strategists to avoid the network as well. Preibus wrote, Though MSNBC already apologized on Twitter, Priebus, knowing full-well the political upside of extending this controversy, said he wants a personal apology from Griffin. And he got one Thursday afternoon. Priebus's office accepted the apology, but continued on to say that it "will aggressively monitor the network to see whether their pattern of unacceptable behavior actually changes. We don't expect their liberal bias to change, but we will call them out when political commentary devolves into personal and belittling attacks."