Oh, Donny. Advertising’s Liberal Bro Faces the Wrath of 3%’s Kat Gordon on Twitter

By Minda Smiley 

Sigh. Donny Deutsch is at it again.

On Friday, the agency exec turned Morning Joe regular gave his two cents on why Elizabeth Warren isn’t surging in the polls: There’s a certain “stridentness” to her that’s preventing her from being likable.

“Do we want to invite her into our bedrooms and our living rooms every day for four years?” he mused on the MSNBC show.

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Twitter, of course, wasn’t having it—particularly 3% Conference founder Kat Gordon, who said Deutsch is “Exhibit A” for why the industry needs the conference in the first place.

Gordon followed with this comment to AgencySpy:

“Donny Deutsch’s comments about Elizabeth Warren—delivered on live TV—are emblematic of something so systemic and harmful that I felt compelled to call him out. The very word he chose to criticize Warren, “strident,”  is almost never used for men. It is a term reserved for women as a rebuke of their strength and clear point of view, two things desperately needed in government and all sectors of society right now. Couching his comments as ‘not because she’s a woman and not sexist in origin’ is a flimsy attempt to hide behind the fact that he personally doesn’t find a strong woman electable. What a poverty of imagination.”

Deutsch’s comments also caused this 2008 clip to resurface, in which he refers to vice presidential contender Sarah Palin as a “super mom” with a “special need kid” who would win over voters with her “sexy” looks.

“She’s the perfect age: 44. She’s certainly got experience,” he said at the time. “But she’s still young enough to have that physical appeal. Women want to be her, men want to mate with her.”

When we asked Deutsch—the agency his father founded and he sold in 2000—if the agency wanted to comment, we got nada. But a spokesperson did point out that he hasn’t worked there in more than five years.

Lest we forget this book he wrote in 2005, where he shares a number of alarming stories, like the fact that he fantasized about the women working at Deutsch. Come on, bro.

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