Fox News fired back at advertisers who have pulled their support from Tucker Carlson’s show over comments he made last week when he said immigration “makes our own country poor and dirtier and more divided.”
Slamming “far left activist groups,” the network said it would not allow voices like Carlson’s to be “censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts.”
“We cannot and will not allow voices like Tucker Carlson to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts from the likes of Moveon.org, Media Matters and Sleeping Giants,” a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement to TPM on Tuesday. “Attempts were made last month to bully and terrorize Tucker and his family at their home. He is now once again being threatened via Twitter by far left activist groups with deeply political motives. While we do not advocate boycotts, these same groups never target other broadcasters and operate under a grossly hypocritical double standard given their intolerance to all opposing points of view.”
Carlson has remained defiant in the face of the boycott, addressing the controversy on his show Monday evening and saying the “tactic” will not “work with this show. We’re not intimidated.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter’s count, at least 15 advertisers have pulled out of his show since the backlash. In the statement to TPM, the Fox News spokesperson said that the show has lost no revenue and that several companies, like Farmers Insurance and My Pillow, have publicly thrown their support behind Carlson’s show.
