Tucker Carlson Faces New Boycott Calls

Tucker Carlson

Sponsors for “Tucker Carlson Tonight” faced renewed calls for boycotts Thursday after Carlson falsely claimed Wednesday night that George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by police in Minneapolis last summer, died of a drug overdose. 

The claim Carlson shared on Fox News Wednesday has been debunked and it earned him significant ire as a result, reports The Wrap.

Sleeping Giants, an organization that frequently calls on Fox News sponsors to remove their ads from the channel and its associated website, started tweeting the video of Carlson making the claim directly at brands like Sandals Resort and Nutrisystem, which advertise during his primetime hour. The move has been successful for Sleeping Giants in the past.

Representatives for Sandals and Nutrisystem did not immediately return a request for comment. The brands have advertised with the network for years and their commercials have remained on the airwaves through previous rounds of advertiser boycotts aimed at Carlson and Laura Ingraham.

Carlson’s goal in repeating the debunked claim about Floyd was to suggest that powerful individuals feed false claims to the masses in order to drum up anger.

While Fentanyl was found in Floyd’s body, the autopsy report from Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded his cause of death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression” — or heart failure.