Tribune editor defends scathing Hatch editorial: ‘He thinks the seat belongs to him’

The head of The Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial board is defending the paper’s scathing editorial against Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), accusing the longtime lawmaker of believing “the seat belongs to him.”

“I think that he’s resting on his laurels,” editorial board director George Pyle told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson on Wednesday. “He ran saying ‘Look, I’m the influential guy in the Senate. You don’t want to lose my power.'”

The Tribune, Utah’s largest paper, published an editorial on Christmas Day naming Hatch the “Utahn of the Year,” which they said went to a figure who produced the “biggest impact” for either “good or for ill.”

{mosads}In the editorial, the paper went on to blast Hatch, attributing his influence to “his utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.”

The paper said Hatch, who will complete his seventh Senate term in 2018, should “call it a career.” 

“Anybody who would replace him from the middle of the Republican Party would probably vote the same way,” Pyle said Wednesday, “and would probably be rather less embarrassing in the way he’s kowtowing to the president.”

The editor suggested former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a replacement. Pyle said Romney would vote the same way but that Utahns would be “spared the embarrassment” of the current senator “sucking up to the president.” 

The editorial gained more attention after Hatch’s Twitter feed touted the paper’s front page declaring the senator “Utahn of the Year” but without acknowledging the sharply critical editorial. Hatch’s office said the tweet was meant as sarcasm.

Hatch spokesman Matt Whitlock later slammed the paper for having an “unquenchable thirst for clicks.”