After news broke that Sen. Barbara Mikulski would vote to support the Iran Deal, all but securing passage of a key Obama foreign policy initiative, PBS Newshour anchor Gwen Ifill re-tweeted a White House-backed account supporting the deal, adding her own comment. “Take that Bibi,” Ifill wrote on the Tweet. The line seems to mock Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is vehemently against the deal.
Take that, Bibi. https://t.co/V9Gn9vP6xN
— gwen ifill (@gwenifill) September 2, 2015
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Critics immediately took the tweet (which she called an inadvertent poke) to mean that Ifill herself supports the deal, which she tried to explain away:
every now and then, you inadvertently poke twitter in the eye. and it never disappoints.
— gwen ifill (@gwenifill) September 2, 2015
After a story about the tweet was posted on Drudge Report, giving it the ultimate megaphone, Ifill tried to clarify:
Fair question @ActForIsrael : I was RT’ing a @TheIranDeal tweet. Should have been clearer that it was their argument, not mine.
— gwen ifill (@gwenifill) September 2, 2015
We’ve reached out to PBS NewsHour to see if there will be any repercussions, but we have not heard back.