The South Carolina Republican Party voted Saturday to ban CNN and NBC from conducting presidential primary debates in the state ahead of the 2016 campaign if they move forward with programming featuring Hillary Clinton.
The resolution was passed by the state executive committee at its quarterly meeting in Columbia.
“If CNN and NBC continue to move forward with this and other such programming, the South Carolina Republican Party will neither partner with these networks in the 2016 presidential primary nor sanction any primary debates they sponsor,” the resolution reads.
The news first broke via Twitter as a result of a Tweet by one of the attendees.
The Republican National Committee had previously said it would not allow CNN or NBC to host GOP debates due to both networks’ involvement in the development in Hillary Clinton biography programs, but this appears to be the first instance a state party has taken formal action.
The formal resolution in its entirety below:
WHEREAS, former Secretary Hillary Clinton is likely to run for President in 2016, and CNN and NBC have both announced programming that amounts to little more than extended commercials promoting former Secretary Clinton; and
WHEREAS, these programming decisions are an attempt to show political favoritism and put a thumb on the scales for the next presidential election; and
WHEREAS, airing this programming will jeopardize will the credibility of CNN and NBC as supposedly unbiased news networks and undermine the perceived objectivity of the coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign by these networks; and
WHEREAS, Robert Greenblatt, Chairman of NBC Entertainment, contributed the maximum amount to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign committee, contributed $25,000 to Obama’s 2012 Victory Fund, and this year contributed $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee; therefore be it –
RESOLVED, that the South Carolina Republican Party calls on CNN and NBC to cancel the airing of these political ads masked as unbiased entertainment; and, be it further
RESOLVED, that if CNN and NBC continue to move forward with this and other such programming, the South Carolina Republican Party will neither partner with these networks in the 2016 presidential primary debates nor sanction any primary debates they sponsor.
Follow Dave’s blog at TheRun2016.com
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