For a few precious minutes in the waning weeks of President Trump’s presidency, Walmart appeared to hit back at Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) in a now-deleted tweet on Wednesday, shortly after the Republican senator declared that his loyalty to Trump with his plans to object Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results next week.
Hawley, who is expected to campaign for president in 2024, posted a tweet on Wednesday boosting Trump’s bogus claims of widespread election fraud as the Republican senator announced his vote against the certification cementing President-elect Joe Biden’s presidency during the joint session next week.
“At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections,” Hawley said. “But Congress has so far failed to act.”
Minutes later, Walmart’s official Twitter account hit back at Hawley’s gambit, which is a long shot effort at preventing Congress from officially cementing Biden’s victory, by replying: “Go ahead. Get your 2 hour debate. #soreloser”
Walmart’s stint of wading into #resistance Twitter was short-lived when the brow-raising reply to Hawley was deleted.
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) December 30, 2020
In a statement shared with TPM on Wednesday, Walmart Corporate Communications confirmed that the tweet was “mistakenly” posted by a member of its social media team who “intended to publish this comment to their personal account.”
Walmart confirmed that the tweet was taken down as it expressed its regrets over its messaging.
“We have removed the post and have no intention of commenting on the subject of certifying the electoral college,” Walmart said. “We apologize to Senator Hawley for this error and any confusion about our position.”
However, Hawley appeared to not have gotten Walmart’s memo minutes after the company shared its statement with TPM apologizing to Hawley.
Or maybe you’d like to apologize for the pathetic wages you pay your workers as you drive mom and pop stores out of business
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 30, 2020
After greenwashing by cosplaying climate change protocols, I can’t say I’m surprised Walmart appeared to break with wingnuts for 5 minutes.
To paraphrase Lyndon Johnson, “When you’ve lost the Walmart social media team, you’ve lost America.”
With any luck, Walmart will be the least of his tough guy tears.
Somewhere Walter Cronkite is saying, “and that’s the way it is”.