One of the most virulently anti-LGBTQ voices on television is facing an advertiser boycott.
Nautilus, Inc., the company behind the Bowflex, has pulled its ads from Tucker Carlson Tonight after Tucker Carlson said that immigrants make America “dirtier” last week.
Nautilus is the latest company to pull ads. On Friday, Pacific Life Insurance, NerdWallet (a personal finance company), and SmileDirectClub also stopped their ads on the show after Carlson’s comments.
“Our customer base and our workforce reflect the diversity of our great nation, something we take great pride in,” Pacific Life said in a statement. “We will not be advertising on Mr. Carlson’s show in the coming weeks as we re-evaluate our relationship with his program.”
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Indeed.com, an employment search engine, also confirmed that it pulled ads from the show a month ago.
Related: Tucker Carlson beat up a gay guy who ‘bothered’ him
Last Thursday, Carlson said that immigration into the U.S. is “indefensible,” but that Americans are forced to accept it by “our leaders.”
“We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided,” he said on his Fox News show.
“Immigration is a form of atonement. Previous leaders of our country committed sins; we must pay for those sins by welcoming an endless chain of migrant caravans.”
His response to losing advertisers, though, has not been contrite. On Monday, he said that he stands by his comments.
“Those who won’t shut up get silenced,” Carlson said. “The enforcers scream ‘Racist!’ on Twitter until everybody 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 Fox News took it as an opportunity to attack liberals. “It is a shame that left-wing advocacy groups, under the guise of being supposed ‘media watchdogs,’ weaponize social media against companies in an effort to stifle free speech,” a spokesperson said.
Carlton has a history of anti-LGBTQ comments as well. In 2007, he claimed that he beat up a gay guy in the bathroom once with a friend.
“I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the – you know – and grabbed him and hit him against the stall with his head, actually. And then the cops came and arrested him,” Carlson said on MSNBC Live.
In 2016, Carlson said complained about the gender-neutral bathrooms at the Democratic National Convention, calling them “disgusting.”
And last year, he claimed that transgender people might be “faking” it, and therefore should not benefit from legal protections.
