Whoopi Goldberg To Anheuser-Busch On Conservative Backlash: “Don’t Let Them Scare You, Let Us Scare You”
deadline.comWhoopi Goldberg and her cohosts on ABC’s The View weighed in today on the recent Budweiser controversies, reminding the beer-maker that, as the show’s Ana Navarro said, members of the LGBTQ community “are Americans too.” The conversation follows recent conservative backlash to backlash and boycott calls over Bud Light’s partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Goldberg, beginning the Hot Topic debate by noting that Budweiser was her beer of choice before she quit drinking, asked what conservatives are “so angry about – beer is not a Democrat or a Republican, it doesn’t have a belief system.
It’s just beer.” After releasing the campaign that featured Mulvaney, the Bud brewers faced pushback from MAGA supporter Kid Rock – who shared a video of himself shooting his rifle at cases of Bud Light – and country singer Travis Tritt, who announced a ban of Anheuser-Busch products from his tour.
In an apparent response to the criticism, Anheuser-Busch released an ad featuring a Clydesdale horse galloping past various scenes of Americana, from rural heartland imagery to the Brooklyn Bridge. “This is a story bigger than beer,” the narrator says. “This is the story of the American spirit.” Said View co-host Sunny Hostin, “So now all of a sudden they unleash the Clydesdale horses, like ‘let’s get the horses out because the horses are so much more American than trans people.'” On Friday, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth issued a statement on the matter. “We have thousands of partners, millions of fans and a proud history supporting our communities, military, first responders, sports fans and hard-working Americans everywhere,” the statement said. “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.
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