NBC made itself an easy target for supporters of President Trump on Sunday night when it crowned Oprah Winfrey "OUR future president." The tweet came in response to a joke by Golden Globes host Seth Meyers, who said: "In 2011, I told some jokes about our current president at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Jokes about how he was unqualified to be president. 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!”
"In case anyone had any doubts about where the media stands, this should take care of it," tweeted Donald Trump Jr. afterwards. "The bias against @realDonaldTrump is now so obvious they have simply given up hiding it."
While NBC is separate from its news arm, NBC News, it wasn't just Trump supporters who found the tweet disturbing. "Call me old fashioned but a major network saying this, no matter how you feel about Oprah, bothers me a lot," tweeted Anthony De Rosa, the digital production manager of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Others noted the irony of the tweet coming from the NBC account:
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Even former President George W. Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, weighed in. "This tweet puts every reporter at NBC in a bad spot," he tweeted. "Foolish thing for them to do. But at least now they are open about their bias." Jeva Lange
Update 10:41 a.m.: NBC removed the tweet and released the following statement:
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