Longtime Chicago teleprompter reader Mark Giangreco, who has covered sports in the city since 1982 and is now the sports director at ABC 7, is feeling the heat after tweeting out his thoughts about President Trump. Giangreco decided to offer a response to this tweet from Canadian sports columnist Bruce Arthur:
Donald Trump: a hateful ignorant corrupt simpleton supported by 87% of Republicans
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) February 19, 2017
Giangreco’s reply, which has since been deleted, read:
In one tweet, he paints Trump voters — and perhaps the entire country — as simpletons, and then, with the use of quotation marks around the word “election,” goes on to suggest that Trump’s presidency is somehow illegitimate.
All of this from a guy whose job it is to read sports scores off of a teleprompter.
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Oh, and Giangreco couldn’t help himself in a subsequent tweet, responding to former Major League pitcher Curt Schilling, by dropping the Nazi card:
Again, Giangrego has since deleted this tweet.
Giangreco’s criticism of Trump voters rings even more hollow now that it’s been revealed by the Chicago City Wire that Giangreco didn’t vote in the 2010, 2012, 2014, or 2016 elections:
Giangreco, 63, has worked at ABC 7 Chicago since 1994. He has lived in the One Museum Park high-rise development in Chicago’s South Loop since 2010 and is a registered voter, but he didn’t vote in the 2010, 2012, 2014 or 2016 elections, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Don’t forget that this is the same Mark Giangreco who, in 1999, described Hall of Fame Bears running back Walter Payton as looking like Gandhi:
It was just a flip comment, but it still upset Walter and Connie Payton when WLS-TV sports anchor Mark Giangreco referred last week to the gaunt appearance of the Bears Hall of Fame running back.
“He referred to him as Gandhi. And then, earlier in the day, I think he said (Walter) looked shriveled up or something like that. I think he owes him an apology,” Connie Payton said Tuesday.
Payton was suffering from a liver condition that ultimately proved to be fatal.
Fast forward a few years later to 2004 when Giangreco suffered a one-week suspension from ABC 7 after he inserted a black-and-white clip of a city burning and described it as a, “typical night in Detroit.”
Just a few years ago, Giangreco’s Twitter account got him into trouble when he decided that making light of suicide was an appropriate way to talk about Bears quarterback Jay Cutler.
So, nobody at @ABC7Chicago thought suicide humor was inappropriate? http://t.co/nnwUYoMu9b pic.twitter.com/mk3xqDE9Cr
— Mark Joyella (@standupkid) December 17, 2014
Lastly, let’s also not forget Giangreco’s New Year’s Eve antics, as he rang in 2016 by licking his on-air co-host Janet Davies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MpF55x5JKs
This is the guy who think’s that Trump voters are “simpletons”.
Now, Giangreco’s political views begin to make sense, given his family ties. His brother Pete Giangreco is a political consultant, whose portfolio of clients includes the trifecta of disgraced Democrat politicians Gary Hart, John Edwards, and Rod Blagojevich — not exactly a trio that you’d want to include on your résumé.
Pete Giangreco once compared members of TEA Party protests in 2010 to the Oklahoma City bombers.
Maybe it’s time for Mark Giangreco to stick to sports highlights instead of taking political cues from his brother.