Caving to a “smear campaign” led by pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich and boosted by Nazi-linked former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka, MSNBC has reportedly moved to cut ties with progressive commentator Sam Seder for a satirical tweet from 2009 aimed at criticizing defenders of the film director and convicted child rapist Roman Polanski.

“It’s really pathetic of MSNBC to cut ties with Sam Seder over a tweet skewering people who try to apologize for Roman Polanski.”
—Elizabeth Bruenig, Washington Post

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The tweet came in response to a petition circulated by Hollywood filmmakers and actors that called for Polanski’s release after he was arrested in Switzerland on a U.S. warrant. In a video posted last week, Seder explained that his since-deleted tweet was meant to satirize the “disgusting and offensive attempt by some in the film industry to allow for Roman Polanski to return to the U.S. from where he was a fugitive to avoid a trial regarding his alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl.”

“I was particularly digusted that a community I was even tangentially associated with would defend a child rapist based on the fact that he was a good filmmaker,” Seder added. “At that time I wrote and posted a tweet that captured my anger in the best way I knew how, which was through satire.”

Cernovich—a Roy Moore backer who has claimed that “date rape does not exist”—proceeded to spread a “wilful misinterpretation” of the tweet as a defense of Polanski, Seder notes.

Watch Seder’s full statement:

 MSNBC‘s decision to not renew its contract with Seder as a result of Cernovich’s efforts was immediately met with outrage and slammed as an “absolutely shameful” decision to capitulate to far-right trolls and “rape apologists.”

“NBC kills the Weinstein story, then freaks out over a bad faith misreading of Sam Seder? Man, they’re screwing up every which way,” wrote the Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel. Others piled on: