Trump supporters riled up after 'The Good Fight' tweets 'target words' list including 'assassinate,' 'president'

Suzy Byrne
·Editor, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated

A tweet from the social media team behind The Good Fight has stirred up Trump supporters.

On Friday, the handle for the CBS All-Access series tweeted a screenshot from the Mar. 28 episode asking followers to find an Easter egg. The image, which has since been deleted along with the tweet, shows a list of “target words” being monitored by the show’s fictionalized version of the National Security Agency (NSA). The list, shown briefly on screen during the episode titled “The One Where Diane Joins the Resistance,” included about 100 terms — but began with “assassinate,” followed by “president” and “Trump.”

This screenshot from at March 28 episode of "The Good Fight" is causing drama. (Image: Twitter)
This screenshot from the March 28 episode of "The Good Fight" has led to a flurry of fake news. (Image: Twitter)

An edited version of the original image with the aforementioned three words as well as “eliminate” and “Mar-a-lago” circled in red spread across the internet in a flurry over the weekend. The drama has led to some people calling for the boycott of the show — while others claimed they contacted the Secret Service to report the “threat.” (It remains unclear whether or not the Secret Service received any calls about this, but Yahoo has reached out to the Homeland Security spokesperson for comment.)

Actor James Woods was one of the many people to post about it.

The narrative being rewritten is that the show made some sort of threat against President Trump.

In actuality, Christine Branski’s character Diane learns that her phone conversations with the leader of an anti-Trump women’s resistance group were being monitored by the show’s NSA (read a recap of the episode here). The list was supposed to serve as a wink to fans that the show’s NSA-like group was still investigating the character Kalinda, played by Archie Panjabi on The Good Wife. Her name appears in the second row of the list.

A spokeswoman for CBS All Access tells Yahoo Entertainment in a statement: “A social media post for The Good Fight displayed show content that, when presented in isolation, outside of the context of the show, created an impression and provoked a reaction that was not intended. The tweet showed a screengrab from the show’s fictional NSA office, including a list of standalone ‘target words’ the series’ NSA characters should look out for while conducting anonymous wire taps in an effort to protect the President and the public. However, the tweet was regrettably posted without that context, in an effort to direct fans to find an ‘Easter Egg’ clue, in reference to a past character on The Good Wife, Kalinda, listed in the second column of the list, and the fact that the NSA is still monitoring her in the fictional world of the show. The post was perceived very differently than the intended result and has since been removed.”

The uproar over the list online has led to more drama. Since this happened, Nyambi Nyambi, who plays investigator Jay DiPersia on the show, is being trolled by known white supremacists. That’s because in a monologue on the show, he said — in character — that it’s OK to punch a Nazi. So now white supremacists are also claiming CBS is “inciting violence” against Nazis.

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