Sponsors Are Pulling Out of Tucker Carlson's Show After His Latest Racist Rant [UPDATED]
Tucker Carlson, the white nationalist cable TV boy we know and love, may finally be running out of luck. Sponsors are pulling out of his show Tucker Carlson Tonight after a particularly repugnant segment on immigration last week, in which he said mass migration would make the U.S. “poorer, dirtier, and more divided.” These comments spurred a social media campaign by Media Matters for America’s Andrew Lawrence and progressive activist Jordan Uhl, who began messaging companies, asking if they’d drop their sponsorship of the show. The call was retweeted by liberal figures with large followings like producer Judd Apatow and actors Zach Braff and Debra Messing.
Others announced they would boycott any companies who wouldn’t disavow Carlson.
Since then, Pacific Life Insurance and SmileDirectClub have all either temporarily or permanently pulled their advertisements from the show, according to Jeremy Barr at The Hollywood Reporter. Today, Bowflex became the fourth sponsor to pull their ads.
From the Reporter:
“We can confirm that Nautilus, Inc., parent company for Bowflex, has pulled its ads from the Tucker Carlson Tonight show,” the company said. “We buy media broadly across many news networks, and do not target ads based on specific programs or hosts. However, we have requested that Fox News remove our ads from airing in conjunction with Tucker Carlson Tonight in the future. Aside from our decision to remove our ads from his show, we have no other association or affiliation with Mr. Carlson.”
Activists decided to target Carlson him because his show gives voice to specific white nationalist ideas like “white genocide” and the dangers of MS-13.
“Tucker Carlson serves as a mouthpiece for white nationalist talking points every night during prime time,” Uhl told Splinter in a direct message on Twitter. “By advertising on his show, companies are complicit in normalizing hateful ideas that inspire the likes of David Duke and manifest as real, tangible hate throughout America.”
Of course, none of the companies who have taken action are willing to come out and say what exactly it is about Carlson they find so distasteful. Some of them even suggested it wasn’t a problem with his show, but with political programming in general.
“We are actively working with our media buyers to confirm that SmileDirectClub is no longer running our ads around any political opinion shows,” a spokesperson for SmileDirectClub, an outfit that sells clear teeth aligners, told the Reporter.
Indeed.com, a job search site, told the Reporter that they had already cancelled their advertising on the program. “As a company, we are nonpartisan—our site is for everyone, regardless of background or beliefs. Indeed has not advertised on the Tucker Carlson Tonight program in over a month, and has no plans to do so in the future,” a spokesperson said in a statement.