Republican Groups Stop Twitter Ad Spending After McConnell Account Locked

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the Capitol in Washington on May 14, 2019. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

National Republican campaign committees and President Donald Trump’s campaign have announced on Aug. 8 that they will stop spending money to advertise on Twitter after the social media platform locked one of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) account.

Groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the Republican Governors Association, and the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced their move amid a time where conservative groups, pundits, and figures claim large tech companies are perpetrating anti-conservative bias by stifling the voices of the right.

“I have directed the @nrcc to immediately halt all spending with  @Twitter until they correct their inexcusable targeting of  @Team_Mitch. We will stand firmly with our friends against anti-conservative bias,” Parker Hamilton Poling, the executive director of NRCC, said on Twitter.

Similarly, Richard Walters, RNC’s chief of staff, released a similar statement on Twitter, saying both the RNC and Trump’s campaign @TeamTrump will also join other groups in halting spending on Twitter.

“The @GOP and @TeamTrump stand with the @Team_Mitch and the @NRSC. Any future ad $ either organization was planning to spend with @Twitter has been halted until they address this disgusting bias.”

The executive director of the Republican Governors Association, Dave Rexrode, also made a similar announcement.

“@The_RGA will join the @NRCC, @NRSC and @GOP in not spending a dime advertising on @Twitter until the situation with @Team_Mitch is resolved. The anti-conservative bias and double standards must end,” he wrote.

Rep. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also expressed solidarity with the GOP groups, saying that his campaign will also take the same action.

“This is unbelievable even for Twitter. My campaign is standing with the @NRSC, too. ...We will not spend a single penny on @Twitter until @Team_Mitch’s access has been restored.#StopTheBias,” he wrote.

McConnell’s campaign account @team_mitch was locked on Aug. 7 after it posted a video showing protesters outside the majority leader’s home in Louisville threatening him.

According to a message the company sent to Kevin Golden, one of the people behind the account, it “determined that this account violated Twitter rules,” reported Politico. The violation appeared to be the video that showed protestors cursing and threatening the senator.

A Twitter spokesperson told the news outlet the team was “temporarily locked out of their account for a Tweet that violated our violent threats policy, specifically threats involving physical safety.” Meanwhile, Golden said that the account was locked “for posting the video of real-world, violent threats made against Mitch McConnell.”

In the video, Chanelle Helm, who is the Black Lives Matter Louisville leader, said that McConnell should be stabbed in the heart and at another point said she wished he had broken his neck when he fell over the weekend outside the house.

Helms and other protesters unleashed profanity-riddled statements during the protest, while the official McConnell campaign account posted the video to its page to highlight their behavior.

Golden told The Hill that they have appealed Twitter’s decision to lock McConnell’s account, adding that the account will remain locked until the video is deleted.

“This is a problem with the speech police in America today,” Golden said. “Twitter will allow the words ‘massacre Mitch’ to trend nationally on their platform. But locks our account for posting actual threats against us.”

Epoch Times reporter Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.