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KitchenAid Apologizes for Offensive Tweet about Obama’s Grandmother

KitchenAid, the home appliance company, is scrambling to make amends today after an employee sent out an offensive anti-Obama tweet yesterday from the official KitchenAid account.

The offensive tweet read, “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president.”

During last night’s debate, the president talked about his grandmother dying just three days before he was elected in 2008.

KitchenAid deleted the insulting tweet and has been sending out apology tweets throughout the morning.

Cynthia Soledad, KitchenAid’s senior director of marketing, told CNN the tweet was mistakenly posted to the official account by a member of the brand’s Twitter management team.

“The tasteless joke in no way represents our values at KitchenAid, and that person won’t be tweeting for us anymore,” she said. “I am deeply sorry to President Obama, his family, and the Twitter community for this careless error.”

The official KitchenAid apology tweets read as follows:

“Deepest apologies for an irresponsible tweet that is in no way a representation of the brand’s opinion. #nbcpolitics

“I would like to personally apologize to President @BarackObama, his family and everyone on Twitter for the offensive tweet sent earlier.”

“It was carelessly sent in error by a member of our Twitter team who, needless to say, won’t be tweeting for us anymore.”

“That said, I take full responsibility for my team. Thank you for hearing me out.”

Obama talked about his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, when the candidates were discussing Medicare and Social Security. He described how she had risen from a bank secretary to the vice president of the bank through her hard work, even though she only had a high school education.

“You know, my grandmother—some of you know—helped to raise me,” Obama said. “My grandfather died a while back. My grandmother died three days before I was elected president. And she was fiercely independent. She worked her way up, only had a high school education, started as a secretary, ended up being the vice president of a local bank. And she ended up living alone by choice.”

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