Boston Globe op-ed suggests restaurant waitstaff ‘tamper’ with Republicans’ food

The Boston Globe is under fire after publishing an opinion piece suggesting that restaurant waitstaff tamper with Republicans' — particularly former President Trump staffers' — food.

What are the details of the article?

Opinion writer Luke O'Neil wrote the article, which has since been deleted, titled "Keep Kirstjen Nielsen unemployed and eating Grubhub over her sink."

O'Neil seemed to suggest that Republicans and former President Donald Trump staffers should be punished for not being Democrats or liberals.

"As for the waiters out there, I'm not saying you should tamper with anyone's food, as that could get you into trouble," O'Neill wrote in his article. "You might lose your serving job. But you'd be serving America. And you won't have any regrets years later."

O'Neil also admitted that one of his life's "biggest regrets" is not urinating in conservative pundit Bill Kristol's food when O'Neil was a server.

"One of the biggest regrets of my life is not pissing in Bill Kristol's salmon," O'Neil wrote. "I was waiting on the disgraced neoconservative pundit and chief Iraq War cheerleader about 10 years ago at a restaurant in Cambridge and to my eternal dismay, some combination of professionalism and pusillanimity prevented me from appropriately seasoning his entree."

You can read the original article via web archive here.

What is being said now?

Boston Globe editors apologized to readers in a note Thursday, and explained that O'Neil is not a staff writer for the publication.

"The Globe Opinion page has removed from its website an April 10 column by Luke O'Neil on former homeland security chief Kirstjen Nielsen because it did not receive sufficient editorial oversight and did not meet Globe standards," the statement read. "The Globe regrets its lack of vigilance on the matter. O'Neil is not on staff."

Before completely scrapping the article, the Globe attempted to salvage the mess.

"A version of this column as originally published did not meet Globe standards and has been changed," the statement read. "The Globe regrets the previous tone of the piece."

Has O'Neil said anything?

O'Neil issued an apology in a brief and sarcastic statement.

"I am sorry for my commentary regarding the warden of the baby jail," O'Neil told The Wrap in a statement.

“In the famously left wing media, you can write op-eds advocating for turning Muslim weddings into bloodbaths forever but if you say human rights violators or war criminals deserve a pube on their salad it's over the line," he added.

O'Neil told The Washington Post that while he isn't necessarily an advocate for defiling conservatives' meals, he does believe that former Trump staffers should be harassed in public.

"I wasn't really advocating to piss in somebody's food, that's crazy," O'Neil said, adding to the outlet that he was a regular contributor at the Globe. "But I do think these people should be made uncomfortable in public. I don't think that's a ... radical idea."

He added, "I do not apologize for it personally whatsoever."

As for O'Neil's fate at the Globe — which the outlet has remained mum on — it doesn't even matter.

"They completely cut my throat on this," he told the Post. "I will never write for them again."