When Melissa McCarthy portrayed former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live, her favorite target was New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush (played by Bobby Moynihan). McCarthy-as-Spicer would yell, “Everybody hates Glenn,” whenever the reporter asked a question.
You can add Washington, D.C.’s homeless population to that list.
Thrush was suspended from the White House beat last year after a string of sexual misconduct allegations.
Instead of firing him, the Times simply moved him to a different beat: covering the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the “social safety net” (systems to help the poor, such as shelters and welfare).
Let’s see how that’s going.
Yes, a reporter meant to cover the plight of the homeless in our nation’s capital is on a Twitter soapbox describing mentally ill people as “talking to invisibles.”
Not surprisingly, Thrush was roundly condemned.
https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/status/997531798480543744
It's one thing to try to quietly return to Twitter without addressing — at all — the allegations against you, or apologizing to the women you harmed, but you can't also do shitty tweets like this on top of it
— Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) May 18, 2018
So he deleted the initial tweet, but doubled down on his main point in a series of follow-ups—even reusing the phrase “mentally ill.”
Take Two: the trains in DC are packed full of homeless mentally ill people today because it is raining — indicative of a very serious problem that seems to require a more robust policy solution than the city is providing.
Is that more to the point?
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) May 18, 2018
If you are going to take the time to read my tweets, please take the time to read a story I wrote a few years ago (that didn't get much attention) about intergenerational poverty in Memphis… and one solution that worked: Direct cash payments to the poor. https://t.co/MEKeXCDBgS https://t.co/yRcTfd0Zwg
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) May 18, 2018
Really? I covered homelessness/ housing for 25 years — written story after story about lousy shelters and poor funding — once spent 24 hours riding on an A train with a homeless woman during a rain storm. And I was pointing out how bad things were TODAY in DC but troll on… https://t.co/OKqZSvYhnP
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) May 18, 2018
Homelessness is indeed a “very serious problem” in Washington, D.C. The city’s homelessness rate is more than double the national average, and its largest shelter recently shut down, with no clear alternative in sight.
Thrush has covered this story admirably over the last few months, but he still manages to put his foot in his mouth on social media.
That’s partly the reason why Thrush suspended his Twitter account in September—he called the site a “distraction.” He reinstated his Twitter account once he returned to the Times in January.
Of course, in the interim multiple women accused Thrush of initiating “hazy sexual encounters that played out under the influence of alcohol.”
“I have done things that I am ashamed of, actions that have brought great hurt to my family and friends,” Thrush said in a statement. “I am working hard to repair the damage I have done.”
But as one commenter above noted, Thrush has never addressed the allegations on Twitter. And it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon.
