MSNBC Draws Fire For Describing Romney And Sasse As ‘New Generation Of Mavericks’
Reacting to Utah Republican Senator-elect Mitt Romney’s Washington Post op-ed in which the one-time GOP presidential nominee criticized President Donald Trump’s character just days before being sworn in, MSNBC posted an on-air graphic describing Romney and fellow Trump-skeptical Republican Ben Sasse as the “new generation of mavericks.”
Speaking to former John McCain adviser Mike Murphy Wednesday afternoon, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell asked him if he was surprised to see this “new maverick shift” coming from Romney. The two then talked about which GOP senators would be willing to stand up to President Trump now that critics such as McCain, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker are no longer in the Senate.
This then led to MSNBC showing the graphic, which also noted that Corker and Flake were “Departing Senate Mavericks”:
Well, it didn’t take long for MSNBC to take heat for describing milquetoast conservatives as “mavericks,” especially from liberals and progressives.
I mean this is preposterous pic.twitter.com/eRHVc6jv8U
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) January 2, 2019
MSNBC's "new generation of mavericks" in the Senate is composed of:
-a twice-failed presidential candidate who's been on the national scene for 10+ years, and
-an incumbent senator entering the 4th year of his term https://t.co/dodOlY0ABa pic.twitter.com/tBaBltUbqe
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) January 2, 2019
MSNBC: "mavericks"
Voting record: nah pic.twitter.com/5kfvvhpEWy
— Matt Ortega (@MattOrtega) January 3, 2019
Seriously @MSNBC ? “Mavericks”?
— Spencer Garrett (@1SpencerGarrett) January 3, 2019
Sasse voted with the Administration 87 percent of the time. Corker 92%. If these are the mavericks, MSNBC, hate to see sycophants https://t.co/5wtmmhcc7z
— Eric Schultz (@EricSchultz) January 2, 2019
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski said he “looked at this a dozen times and still can’t believe it’s real.”
I’ve looked at this a dozen times and still can’t believe it’s real. pic.twitter.com/bQ0cgFqwoN
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) January 3, 2019
HuffPost’s Yashar Ali wanted to know who was responsible for the graphic.
Who is responsible for this? pic.twitter.com/F3yIvbG6wl
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 3, 2019
Yashar’s tweet caused Meghan McCain to respond and claim that her father was the “only real maverick.”
The only real maverick was my father
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) January 3, 2019
Gizmodo’s Tom McKay put together some parody versions of MSNBC’s graphic, some of which were truly inspired.
— ˡᵛˡ ⁴⁵ CHAOS POTUS (@thetomzone) January 3, 2019
— ˡᵛˡ ⁴⁵ CHAOS POTUS (@thetomzone) January 3, 2019
— ˡᵛˡ ⁴⁵ CHAOS POTUS (@thetomzone) January 3, 2019
— ˡᵛˡ ⁴⁵ CHAOS POTUS (@thetomzone) January 3, 2019
You can watch the full clip of Mitchell’s interview with Murphy above, via MSNBC.
