Comedian Kumail Nanjiani, best known for the award-winning film The Big Sick, was roundly criticized Sunday for a tweet suggesting that John McCain and his family have not spoken out against injustices to other races.
McCain — currently battling an aggressive brain cancer — has been in the limelight recently due to a couple of very distasteful comments made about him; one White House aide said his vote on whether to confirm potential CIA Director Gina Haspel didn’t matter because “he’s dying anyway,” and a military analyst said that torture “worked” on him, which is why he’s called “Songbird John.”
Nanjiani took the McCain-centric moment to say that the Republican hasn’t exactly been a social justice warrior:
And Twitter was quick to remind him that McCain’s been pretty damn vocal against injustice — including the famous moment he stood up to a bigoted voter in the 2008 election, which you can watch above — throughout his decades-long career in public service:
Even Meghan McCain called out Kumail for his tweet:
//twitter.com/MeghanMcCain/status/995972553926692864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”
[image via screengrab]