New York Times defends ed. board member being 'disturbed' by the US flag, saying she meant it had been 'politicized' by Trump supporters

 The New York Times defended one of the editorial board members after she said that she was "disturbed" by seeing American flags and received online backlash.

In a statement on Tuesday from the public relations Twitter account from the Times, they attempted to clarify her comments.

"New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay's comments on MSNBC have been irresponsibly taken out of context. Her argument was that Trump and many of his supporters have politicized the American flag," they tweeted.

"The attacks on her today are ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith," they added.

Gay had appeared Tuesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to register her disgust with how supporters of former President Donald Trump were celebrating the American flag.

"The reality is here that we have a large percentage of the American — I don't know how big it is, but we have tens of millions of Trump voters who continue to believe that their rights as citizens are under threat by simple virtue of having to share the democracy with others," said Gay to Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of the show.

She went on to recount how she was disturbed when visiting a friend in Long Island and seeing so many flags.

"I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with expletives against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags and in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing, because essentially the message was clear: It was 'This is my country. This is not your country. I own this,'" Gay explained.

Many on social media took exception to Gay's description of the use of the flag.

She had previously made headlines in March 2020 when she made a major calculating error when trying to deride how much Mike Bloomberg had spent on his ill-fated presidential campaign. Gay was roundly mocked and ridiculed on social media for the embarrassing mistake, which she blamed on racism later.

Here's the video of Mara Gay's comments: