At least nine companies say they plan to pull ads from Fox News host Tucker Carlson's show after anti-immigrant comments he's made in recent weeks.
Carlson, a homophobe and enabler of white nationalist rhetoric, interviewed a politician from Tijuana to talk about the migrant caravan that has been traveling on foot from South America to the U.S. border in hopes of seeking asylum in America. Carlson warned that allowing mass-immigration was a poor economic move, doubling down to say that it "makes our country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided," according to CNN.
Viewers quickly took to social media to urge advertisers to pull their spots from Carlson's show. Sophie Weiner at Splinter News reports several people tweeted to advertisers, imploring them to pull ads from the show due to Carlson's views. Of course, Carlson has long demonstrated his show to be a haven for white nationalist conspiracy theories, homophobic statements, and other drag-worthy reasons.
After three advertisers pulled their spots following those remarks, he returned to the air on Monday to defend what he said, citing images of garbage left at the US-Mexico border and claiming "huge swaths of the region are covered with garbage and waste ... that degrade the soil and kill wildlife," brought on by members of the caravan.
Since then, several more advertisers have announced they would not be affiliated with Carlson's show. So far, the list includes Land Rover, IHOP, Ancestry.com, Just For Men, Minted, Smile Direct, Pacific Life, ScotteVest, and Zenni, CNN reports.
Still, in his own rebuttal on FoxNews.com on Tuesday, Carlson says he would not stop railing against the migrant caravan that is now encamped at the border in Tijuana.
"Those who won't shut up get silenced," he writes. "You've seen it a million times. It happens all the time. The enforcers scream "racist!" on Twitter until everyone gets intimidated, and changes the subject to the Russia investigation or some other distraction. It's a tactic. A well-worn one. Nobody thinks it's real. And it won't work with this show. We're not intimidated. We plan to try to say what's true until the last day. And the truth is, unregulated mass immigration has badly hurt this country's natural landscape."
Will you look at that -- suddenly conservatives are all about preserving the environment.
In any case, Carlson can shout all he wants, but advertisers are not pleased. This is a particularly huge deal because Carlson hosts one of the the most popular shows on the network. And we all know what happened to Bill O'Reilly last year when it turned out that he has an alleged history of rampant sexual misconduct.
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