More advertisers drop Laura Ingraham's Fox News show over David Hogg tweet

Dylan Stableford

At least 15 advertisers say they are pulling their ads from Laura Ingraham’s primetime show on Fox News after the host mocked the Parkland, Fla., teen shooting survivor and activist David Hogg for receiving rejection letters from multiple colleges.

The latest companies to pull their ads from the show are Office Depot, the Atlantis, Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas, Progressive insurance, Liberty Mutual and the global investment group Principal.

In a statement to the Hill, the Atlantis said it “does not support or agree with the recent comments” made by Ingraham, the conservative firebrand.

“Although we are an organization that believes in freedom of expression, we do not condone discrimination, bullying, mockery or harmful behavior of any kind,” an Atlantis spokesperson added. “As a result of these events, we have decided to remove all brand advertising tied to the program.”

The Daily Beast reported Office Depot’s withdrawal on Friday afternoon.

On Wednesday, Ingraham tweeted a link to a story describing how the 17-year-old had been rejected by four University of California campuses, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine, despite having 4.2 grade point average and an SAT score of 1270.

“David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it,” Ingraham wrote.

The tweet drew a swift backlash, with many criticizing Ingraham for attacking the senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School over a personal academic setback less than two months after the massacre at the school.

Hogg, in turn, tweeted a list of 12 of Ingraham’s “top” advertisers, and some of the teen’s 600,000-plus followers responded by contacting the companies and urging that they pull their ads from “The Ingraham Angle.”

Several companies on Hogg’s list — including Nestlé, Hulu, Wayfair, Nutrish, Johnson & Johnson, Expedia, Jenny Craig and TripAdvisor — have done just that.

Ingraham issued an apology on Thursday, saying that “on reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland.”

But that wasn’t sufficient for Hogg.

“An apology in an effort just to save your advertisers is not enough,” he tweeted. “I will only accept your apology only if you denounce the way your network has treated my friends and I in this fight. It’s time to love thy neighbor, not mudsling at children.”

Related: How an ill-advised tweet became a nightmare for a Fox News show

Hogg and many of his fellow Parkland students have become the leaders of the latest effort to reform U.S. gun laws, organizing this month’s massive March for Our Lives rally. They have also become the targets of the National Rifle Association as well as conservative provocateurs like Ingraham, and far-right conspiracy theorists. Hogg and fellow senior Emma González, in particular, have drawn most of the attacks.

Earlier this month, Leslie Gibson, a Republican candidate for Maine’s House of Representatives, called Gonzalez a “skinhead lesbian” and Hogg a “bald-face [sic] liar.” Gibson later apologized.

On Sunday, a message posted on Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King’s Facebook page suggested that González is a communist because she was wearing a patch of the flag of Cuba on her jacket. González is Cuban-American.

On Friday, the Washington Times published an op-ed by Cheryl Chumley who said Hogg “would’ve made a pretty decent brownshirt” — a reference to uniforms worn by members of the Nazi militia under Adolph Hitler before World War II.

Hogg, for his part, is apparently unfazed.

“When you come against any one of us, whether it be me or anybody else, you’re coming against all of us,” he said on CNN’s New Day on Friday. “They cannot push us around, especially when all we’re trying to do here is save lives.”

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Cover photo credit: Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images – Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

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