New York Times’ Mara Gay Says She Was ‘Disturbed’ To See American Flags Flown By Trump Supporters

Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated with a response from the New York Times.

Mara Gay, a member of the New York Times editorial board, said it was disturbing to see “dozens of American flags” flown by Trump supporters during a recent visit to Long Island.

Gay, during a panel segment on MSNBC, claimed Trump supporters display the American flags as a means to show others: “This is my country.” 

“The reality is here that we have a large percentage of the American population … who continue to believe that their rights as citizens are under threat by simple virtue of having to share the democracy with others,” she claimed, discussing the Capitol protest in January.

The Times board member went on to accuse Trump supporters of equating “Americanness” with “whiteness” and suggested that until the two are separated, violence will continue.

NYT/MSNBC’s @MaraGay: In Long Island last weekend, I saw “dozens of American flags,” which was “just disturbing” pic.twitter.com/RhGdqqJope

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 8, 2021

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American Flags Flown By Trump Supporters Is Disturbing

Mara Gay went on to lament seeing Trump supporters on Long Island with cars sporting expletive-laced stickers denouncing President Biden along with their pro-Trump messages.

She also mentioned that some of these fans of the former President had “dozens of American flags” which, to her, “is also just disturbing.”

“I was on Long Island this weekend visiting a really dear friend, and I was really disturbed,” complained Gay.

“I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with explicatives [sic] against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and in some cases just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing,” she continued.

“Essentially the message was clear. This is my country. This is not your country. I own this.”

You can hear Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” saying “Yes,” in agreement with Gay’s absurd commentary in the clip above.

This is the full context of the comments of an important writer with the NYT Editorial Board, @MaraGay, that are well worth listening to given how pervasive these views have become rather quickly in elite media circles: https://t.co/IGDq5A5fMu

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 8, 2021

In response to criticism about Gay’s remarks, the New York Times put out a statement on Twitter claiming that Gay didn’t find American flags disturbing, but rather that she believes “Trump and many of his supporters have politicized the American flag.” 

New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay’s comments on MSNBC have been irresponsibly taken out of context. Her argument was that Trump and many of his supporters have politicized the American flag. The attacks on her today are ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith.

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) June 8, 2021

Many commenters aren’t buying the Times’ explanation, for example journalist Megyn Kelly:

Spin away – we heard her loud and clear.

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 8, 2021

RELATED: Incredible: New York Times Editorial Board Member Promotes Blatantly Edited Trump Coronavirus Quote

Gay’s History Of Insane Remarks

Aside from not knowing the difference between the words ‘explicative’ and ‘expletive,’ the New York Times’ Mara Gay has a long history of bombastic rhetoric and irresponsible behavior.

Around the time of President Biden’s inauguration, Gay said racism and white supremacy gave Trump “free rein to terrorize the American people for four years.”

Now, as we swear in a nearly 80-year old, rich, white career politician who has repeatedly made racist remarks and supported racist policies, the nation can finally heal on matters of race. https://t.co/ZjSuGBz1Le

— Fuzzy Chimp (@fuzzychimpcom) January 20, 2021

And while she has the dramatics necessary to make it with the New York Times, her journalism efforts are often suspect as well.

In March of 2020, in trying to explain how much money former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg had spent on his failed campaign, she used a mathematical analogy from another tweet that ever-so-slightly missed the mark.

“Somebody tweeted recently that with the money he spent he could’ve given every American $1 million,” Gay said before Williams buoyed her statement with a screenshot of the tweet in question.

MSNBC’s Brian Williams and NYTs editorial board member Mara Gay think $500 million dollars divided by 300 million Americans equals $1 million for every American. Our media is populated with fucking morons. https://t.co/pP2amtzcaL

— Mike LaChance (@MikeLaChance33) March 6, 2020

As with Brzezinski, MSNBC anchor Brian Williams simply agreed with Gay and failed to do the math on what she was saying before admitting to the major flub.

Not long after, Gay promoted a deceptively edited quote by President Trump to state governors regarding the coronavirus pandemic, falsely alleging that he had told them “they are on their own.”

Any reporter using half of a quote and refusing to use appropriate context is doing so maliciously.

Here’s the rest of @realDonaldTrump‘s quote : “We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.” https://t.co/qdeWKTVaxE

— Erin Perrine (@ErinMPerrine) March 16, 2020

Gay in this most recent segment chastised Democrats who “haven’t just gone ahead” and held their own partisan investigation into the events involving the Capitol in January.

“The Trump voters who are not going to get onboard with democracy, they’re a minority,” she warned.