Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) accused MSNBC of blowing out of proportion the recent snowstorm in Atlanta that has paralyzed parts of the city.
Speaking on MSNBC on Friday Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, defended Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal’s (R) handling of the city and the state’s response to the storm.
“Yeah, Andrea, I know y’all want to make a really, really, really, really, really, really big deal out of this. But the fact of the matter is, governors and mayors, Republicans or Democrats, get faced with choices ’cause the weather service says it couldn’t really be a a bad storm,” Barbour told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “You go out and spend millions and millions of dollars, and then it’s not a bad storm.”
The storm stranded commuters in Atlanta in their cars for extended periods of time. In one case, an Ohio State football coach in the city who was stranded in the city ditched his car and had to make a more than nine-hour trek to the airport in the weather.
Deal has apologized for the state’s handling of the storm.
“People say, ‘Well that idiot, you know.’ But what Nathan Deal did afterwards was exactly the right thing. He said, ‘Hey, I’m the governor. I take the blame,'” Barbour continued. “This is what you’re supposed to do. Even if you could interpret what was said a lot differently than the way MSNBC is portraying it. But that’s not the point. The guy did the right thing. He stepped up to the plate and said,’I’m the governor, buck stops here.’ A good Democratic president taught us that.”
Barbour’s attack is a continuation of Republicans criticizing MSNBC. Earlier in the week RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called on members of his party to boycott the network in response to a tweet that sparked a conservative firestorm.
This story was updated.
