Although Fox News seems to be doing nothing to rein in Tucker Carlson’s or others’ on-air justifications for the right-wing vigilante murders in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at least some advertisers say they have dropped Carlson.
As we’ve previously reported, after Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested for shooting and killing at least one of the two Black Lives Matter protesters murdered in Kenosha on Wednesday, Carlson said on his program that night:
"So are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?"
An outcry resulted in “Fire Tucker Carlson Now” trending on Twitter that night and into Thursday, as CBS News reported.
CBS also reported on the loss of advertisers:
In a tweet on Wednesday, Gabi Insurance said it intended to pull its ads. The company said it had "indefinitely stopped months ago with Tucker but it seems we were still airing recently. This will NOT happen again. We will make a stand with you."
Grayscale, a digital currency management company, said in a tweet Thursday: "It came to our attention that one of our ads erroneously ran during a TV program last night that is absolutely not aligned with our values or what we stand for. We're investigating how this aired outside of our media buyer's guidelines to ensure this does not happen again."
It is unclear if the program they were referring to was "Tucker Carlson Tonight." CBS News has reached out to those and other companies that advertise during the show for more information.
A spokesperson from SurePayroll told CBS News, "As of this morning, we have halted our remnant bidding [for open commercial time] during the Tucker Carlson timeslot as we continue to evaluate our advertising strategy."
But similar ad boycotts haven’t seemed to have much effect. It’s doubtful this one will either.
As a matter of fact Carlson doubled down on his sentiments Thursday night and other Fox pundits have echoed him.
(Carlson image via screen grab)
$$$$ TALKS — BULLSHIT WALKS!