A Politico reporter who suggested GOP president nominee Mitt Romney is only comfortable around "white folks," has been suspended, the news organization announced late Thursday.
The Washington Free Beacon was first to report on Williams’ controversial remarks, which he made Thursday afternoon on "Martin Bashir Live."
POLITICO reporter Joe Williams has been suspended pending review of recent controversial comments he made on television and Twitter, POLITICO editors informed staff late Thursday night.
On MSNBC today, Williams made a remark suggesting Mitt Romney was only comfortable around white people. The video was first flagged by conservative website Washington Free Beacon. Breitbart.com ran the video and also flagged a series of tweets Williams had written that made fun of the Republican candidate, particularly in regard to his wealth.
"Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe Williams's public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility," POLITICO's founding editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei wrote in a memo to the staff. "His comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way."
As Breitbart.com noted on Thursday, Williams has a history of making controversial remarks about Romney on Twitter, including one ill-advised "joke" about the former Massachusetts governor’s sexual organ.