Several big companies have dropped their advertising for “Tucker Carlson Tonight” after the Fox News host made controversial comments about the Black Lives Matter movement.
“This may be a lot of things, this moment we are living through, but it is definitely not about black lives, and remember that when they come for you,” Carlson said on Monday. “And at this rate, they will.”
The liberal activist group Sleeping Giants tweeted the following day that Carlson’s remarks were “extremely racist” and asked T-Mobile — known to run advertising during Carlson’s hourlong program — to reconsider its financial support for the show.
The telecommunications giant tweeted back saying, “We haven’t run ads on Tucker Carlson Tonight since early May and have cancelled all future placements. We will continue to support those who stand against racial injustice.”
Later in the day, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert tweeted, “Bye-bye, Tucker Carlson!”
Fox News later said Carlson was referring to Democrats when he said “they will come for you.”
“Tucker’s warning about ‘when they come for you’ was clearly referring to Democratic leaders,” a Fox News spokesperson told The Hill.
Companies such as Disney and Papa John’s have since followed in T-Mobile’s footsteps by announcing they would no longer advertise on Carlson’s show either.
Papa John’s, which began advertising on cable news after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, said it would no longer advertise on any “opinion-based programming,” adding that “placement of advertising is not intended to be an endorsement of any specific programming or commentary.”
Disney confirmed to Popular Information that it would no longer advertise on Carlson’s show. Disney ads had appeared 29 times on the show this year, according to the publication.
The company’s move followed a statement from CEO Bob Chapek in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“The killing of George Floyd has forced our nation to once again confront the long history of injustice that black people in America have suffered, and it is critical that we stand together, speak out and do everything in our power to ensure that acts of racism and violence are never tolerated,” he said in a June 3 statement.
Carlson’s on-air comments were the latest in a string of controversial remarks he has made about the U.S. race relations following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.
“What you’re watching is the ancient battle between those who have a stake in society and would like to preserve it and those who don’t and seek to destroy it,” Carlson said on May 29, the day after a police precinct building in Minneapolis was set ablaze.
Carlson’s more recent remarks came the same week he revealed he was selling his stake in The Daily Caller, the conservative publication he co-founded a decade ago, so that he can focus more on his prime-time show.
The New York Times reported Friday that Carlson’s advertising revenue has made up 20 percent of Fox News’s total ad revenue in June, a number that Fox News disputed.
“No show on the network pulls in 20 percent of the ad revenue, including Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Fox spokesperson told The Hill. “All national ads and revenue from Carlson’s show have moved to other programs and FOX News hasn’t lost any revenue overall.”
Carlson has emerged from previous ad boycotts. In 2017, he lost nearly a dozen advertisers when he said certain immigrants make the U.S. “poorer and dirtier and more divided.”
Among the companies to pull their advertising at the time were Pacific Life Insurance, IHOP and TD Ameritrade.