NYT editor apparently deactivates Twitter account after being ridiculed for tweeting ‘I HAVE CHILLS’ when Biden plane landed

New York Times editor Lauren Wolfe’s giddy excitement over the arrival of Joe Biden’s plane near Washington on Tuesday sparked so much mockery that she has seemingly gone into social-media hiding, deactivating her Twitter account.

“Biden landing at Joint Base Andrews now,” Wolfe tweeted. “I have chills.” The comment was reminiscent of past mainstream-media emoting of adoration for favored politicians, such as when former MSNBC host Chris Matthews said he “felt this thrill going up my leg” during a 2008 speech by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

“Prepare for four years of this from the media,” the Media Research Center said in response to Wolfe's comment. Conservative activist Amy Kremer added, “Female version of Chris Matthews.”

There was so much mockery in reaction to Wolfe’s tweet that she first tried to do damage control, saying, “So, a bunch of people think me being excited for the transfer of power tomorrow is somehow disgusting-idiotic-against journalism. It’s a shame.” That statement failed to convince anyone that she might have some journalistic objectivity, and, as of Wednesday morning, her account was missing from Twitter.

It didn’t help that Wolfe had also reported, apparently based on conjecture, that President Donald Trump’s administration didn’t provide a military plane to fly Biden from Delaware to the nation’s capital for Wednesday’s inauguration, which the editor called “pettiness,” “mortifying” and “childish.” 

As ABC News White House correspondent Ben Siegel reported, Biden took a privately chartered plane because no government plane had been requested, according to a transition team official.

One observer noted that, after tweeting about her chills and making a false accusation against Trump, “Wolfe then cowardly closes her Twitter account. No neutrality in today’s media. Wolfe is not a journalist – just another ultra-biased hack propagandist.”

Another commenter quipped that journalistic bias wasn’t the only issue with Wolfe’s tweet. “I think this is a credibility issue more than bias,” he said. “There is no way Joe Biden has ever given a woman chills – the creeps maybe, but not chills.”

Wolfe wasn’t alone in setting an adoring media tone for President Biden’s administration. CNN’s political director, David Chalian, describing Wednesday night’s scene in the capital, gushed, “Those lights that are just shooting out from the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool – it’s like almost... extensions of Joe Biden’s arms embracing America. It was a moment where the new president sort of came to town and sort of convened the country in this moment of remembrance, outstretching his arms.”

More of the same might be expected. “For the media, today is just one long Jeffrey Toobin Zoom call,” conservative radio host Ben Shapiro said, referencing the New Yorker reporter who mistakenly exposed his genitals during a video conference last year.

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