Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and his supporters have always had a rocky relationship with MSNBC due to many occasions where the entrepreneur has been omitted from the network’s coverage, and that all came to a head over the weekend. After Yang said he would not return to MSNBC without an apology, his supporters trended the “BoycottMSNBC” hashtag, and the 44-year-old took delved further into his reasoning for the decision during a CNN appearance.
The Washington Examiner now reports that “an individual at MSNBC” who has “knowledge on the matter” suggested that MSNBC privately apologized to Yang’s campaign. But Yang responded to the claim, suggesting that the source wasn’t telling the truth.
“I can guarantee there has been no apology,” he said.
A similar turn of events arose from a Politico story, which reported that a “network source” said on Saturday that MSNBC offered Yang’s campaign an apology over a call that the network initiated and told him he still has an invitation to appear on shows, although Yang also disputed this.
“MSNBC did NOT apologize to the campaign and did not initiate the call. Don’t let them spin it otherwise,” he replied to the article in a tweet.
Yang’s campaign manager, Zach Graumann, echoed the candidate and expressed amazement at the situation.
“There was no apology and we called them. Unreal.”
I’m not a Yang supporter but look at how MSNBC treats his campaign. This is shameful. Anybody who isn’t in the club gets scorn and derision. pic.twitter.com/m7mP3sQlXK
— Secular Talk? (@KyleKulinski) September 3, 2019
In response to the conflicting stories, Yang’s supporters took to Twitter on Monday to trend #TellTheTruthMSNBC, which made it into the social media platform’s top trends.
“Congratulations @msnbc! You’ve now graduated from lying by omission to straight lying,” one supporter wrote.
“Why do you repeatedly disrespect our candidate like this over and over?” asked another.
“Why won’t you #TellTheTruthMSNBC? Russia isn’t the biggest danger to fair elections in this country, you are!” another chimed in.
The trend also received attention from people that appeared to be outsiders to the campaign.
“Wow. The #YangGang social media game is unmatched,” one said of the recent hashtag trend, which follows a long line of similar hashtag trends that promoted Yang or raise concern over his media exclusion.
Scott Santens, a universal income (UBI) advocate and Yang supporter, wrote an article on Vocal Media that shows the ongoing exclusion that Yang’s campaign has experienced, with the first instance taking place all the way back in March, and the most recent on November 19. The majority of the omissions appear to be at the hands of MSNBC, although CNN has also cut Yang out of their chyrons on multiple occasions.
