The Republican National Committee is banning appearances on MSNBC by its members and surrogates and encouraging the same of other GOP agencies until the left-leaning network's president apologizes for a tweet implying that conservatives are against biracial marriage.
In a memo posted on the RNC website, Chairman Reince Priebus said, “Until he (MSNBC president Phil Griffin) 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.”
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The tweet, which MSNBC has deleted, referred to the biracial family featuered in a Cheerios ad and said, “Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family.”
Late Wednesday night, MSNBC deleted the tweet and posted:
In the letter to Griffin, Priebus criticized a pattern of behavior on MSNBC. “MSNBC hosts — including Alec Baldwin, Martin Bashir, Melissa Harris-Perry, Alex Wagner, and Ronan Farrow just to name a few — have had a troubling streak in the last several weeks of making comments that belittle and demean Americans without furthering any thoughtful dialogue,” he wrote. “Perhaps it’s time for the executives at MSNBC to consider whether their network is upholding a meaningful journalistic mission.”
On the RNC Twitter account, a post Thursday afternoon continued the push for an apology directly from Griffin, offering a link for people to sign a letter demanding that happen:
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