The RNC Is Boycotting MSNBC Until Its President Apologizes For This Tweet

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Thursday that he will bar any RNC staff from appearing on MSNBC after the network sent out an incendiary tweet about conservatives Wednesday night.

Priebus said in a memo that no RNC staff or surrogates would appear on the network until MSNBC President Phil Griffin apologized. In the memo, he asked Republican officials and surrogates to follow his lead. Priebus sent a letter to Griffin informing him of his request.

The tweet suggested that the "rightwing" would "hate" a new Cheerios ad featuring a biracial family:

"We can have our political disagreements with MSNBC, but using biracial families to launch petty and ridiculous political attacks is low, even by MSNBC's standards. It only coarsens our political discourse," Priebus said in the memo.

He added: "This is more than just a tweet or an offhand comment. This is part of a pattern of behavior that has gotten markedly worse, and until Phil Griffin personally apologizes and takes corrective action, we cannot be part of this network's toxic programming."

MSNBC deleted the tweet late last night, and Richard Wolffe, the network's executive editor, apologized in a tweet:

For MSNBC, it's at least the third high-profile controversy over the past two-plus months. In November, it fired Alec Baldwin from a brief run on the show after he used a gay slur. In late December, host Melissa Harris-Perry was forced to apologize after a panel on her show mocked the fact that one of Mitt Romney's grandchildren is black.