Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is calling on all elected Republican officials, strategists and pundits to not appear on MSNBC, following a Wednesday night tweet implying Republicans are racist.
“Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family…” the tweet read with a link to the ad, before it was later deleted.
According to Priebus, the tweet is part of an unacceptable pattern.
“While we understand MSNBC will go to great lengths to discredit Republicans and conservatives, this kind of attack on the millions of Americans who identify with the political right is offensive and unacceptable. Unfortunately, this tweet is just the latest in a pattern of poor statements by MSNBC and its hosts,” Priebus wrote in a memo sent to all Republican elected officials, strategists, surrogates, and pundits.
He added that he has sent a letter to MSNBC president Phil Griffin demanding he personally apologize and take responsibility “for the disgusting tweet.”
“Until he takes internal corrective action and personally apologizes — not just to the RNC but to all right-of-center Americans — I’m banning all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC,” he continued in his memo. “As an elected official, strategist, or surrogate, I’m asking for you to agree to the same. We can have our political disagreements with MSNBC, but using biracial families to launch petty and ridiculous political attacks is low, even by MSNBC’s standards. It only coarsens our political discourse.”
Priebus went on to name current and former MSNBC hosts Alec Baldwin, Martin Bashir, Melissa Harris-Perry, Alex Wagner, and Ronan Farrow as examples of individuals who have had a “troubling streak” of demeaning Americans with their comments
“This is more than just a tweet or an offhand comment,” he added. “This is part of a pattern of behavior that has gotten markedly worse, and until Phil Griffin personally apologizes and takes corrective action, we cannot be part of this network’s toxic programming. I am confident that he will want to ‘lean forward’ and prove to the American people that he does not condone this behavior. I look forward to his apology and corrective action.”
The offending tweet has since been deleted and an apology has been posted on the account.
