NBC apologized on Monday for a tweet endorsing Oprah Winfrey as “OUR future president.”
The tweet was posted in response to a quip from Seth Meyers’ Golden Globes opening monologue, but fell flat with some on social media, including President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
The network, which aired Sunday’s show, then removed the tweet, explaining that it had been posted by a third-party agency used by NBC Entertainment and “was not meant to be a political statement.”
Here’s how it all went down:
“In 2011, I told some jokes about our current president, [Donald Trump], at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Jokes about how he was unqualified to be president,” Meyers quipped. “Some have said that night convinced him to run. So if that’s true, I just want to say: Oprah, you will never be president! You do not have what it takes!”
The joke was promptly followed by the tweet in question, which bore a GIF of Winfrey, Sunday’s Cecil B. DeMille Award recipient. It said “Nothing but respect for OUR future president,” referencing a viral anti-Trump meme.
However, Trump supporters didn’t find the barb so amusing and a backlash ensued. Trump’s Twitter-enthusiast son Don Jr. then took the network to task, saying that the tweet showed the broadcaster’s bias loud and clear.
“In case anyone had any doubts about where the media stands this should take care of it,” he wrote, sharing NBC’s Winfrey tweet. “The bias against realDonaldTrump is now so obvious they have simply given up hiding it. Can you trust anything they say at this point? Americans see the truth in job #s & in their wallets!”
The network then took the tweet down and issued its apology, which Don Jr. later called “strange.”
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