MSNBC has decided not to renew its contract with contributor Sam Seder after an old tweet emerged in which Seder joked about Roman Polanski raping his daughter, TheWrap has learned.
Seder’s contract ends in February and he has no scheduled appearances between now and then, a spokesperson for MSNBC told TheWrap.
“Don’t care re Polanski, but I hope if my daughter is ever raped it is by an older truly talented man w/a great sense of mise en scene,” wrote Seder in the now deleted tweet from 2009.
An archived version can be viewed here.
Also Read: Liberal Twitter Says MSNBC Got Suckered Into Cutting Ties With Sam Seder
A person familiar with the situation said the decision to sever ties with Seder was directly related to the Polanski matter.
“Internally there was disgust over the tweet,” said the individual.
The tweet was first brought to wide attention last month by the pro-Trump journalist and activist Mike Cernovich.
Multiple efforts to reach Seder were unsuccessful, but in a segment of his podcast, “The Majority Report with Sam Seder,” last week, he addressed the matter and accused Cernovich of a smear campaign to take him off the air.
“This smear involves the willful misinterpretation of a tweet that I posted in 2009,” said Seder, who said Cernovich and his allies were deliberately misrepresenting him to silence his criticism of Roy Moore and President Trump. “I will never be ashamed of criticizing those who would excuse the predation of women or girls. And I certainly won’t be quiet about Roy Moore or a conservative movement that which would defend his actions so they could get his vote in the Senate.”
Seder said the tweet was satirical and was intended to show his disgust with liberals at the time who were attempting to apologize for Polanksi’s past behavior.
Also Read: Trump Calls for Firing of MSNBC President and Joe Scarborough
It’s the second time in less than a week that old content has arisen to dog MSNBC. Over the weekend, network anchor Joy Reid was forced to issue a lengthy apology after anti-gay comments she made on a blog between 2007 to 2009 about then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist surfaced on Twitter.
“As a writer, I pride myself on a facility with language — an economy of words or at least some wisdom in the selection. However, that clearly has not always been the case,” wrote Reid in a statement yesterday. “I deeply apologize to Congressman Crist, who was the target of my thoughtlessness. My critique of anti-LGBT positions he once held but has since abandoned was legitimate in my view. My means of critiquing were not.”
In addition to that, sexual misconduct charges have felled MSNBC contributor Mark Halperin while leaving another, Glenn Thrush, on very thin ice. NBC’s “Today” franchise also saw the departure of Matt Lauer last week after management learned of an allegation against him as well.
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