After receiving backlash for her comments toward David Hogg, one of the Parkland shooting survivors, Laura Ingraham, a conservative television and talk show host who has a show on Fox New called “The Ingraham Angle,” apologized for taunting David Hogg.
However, Hogg felt her apology was insincere and a last-ditch effort to save face and advertisers.
It all began when 17-year-old Hogg was rejected by four of University of California’s campuses, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Irvine, despite having a grade point average of 4.2 and an SAT score of 1270 out of a possible 1600.
In his interview with TMZ, Hogg noted that “it’s been kind of annoying having to deal with that and everything that’s been going on,” but noted that he was “changing the world” and would choose to focus on that rather than rejection.
The host of The Ingraham Angle took to Twitter to tweet her thoughts on what she felt about the situation:
David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.) https://t.co/wflA4hWHXY
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 28, 2018
In response to this, Hogg launched a boycott against Ingraham, encouraging people to call her advertisers, who include Johnson & Johnson, Hulu, Jenny Craig and Ruby Tuesday, among others.
This caused more than a dozen advertisers dropping her.
Ingraham later took time to apologize for her comments on Twitter after receiving backlash:
Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. 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. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David…(1/2)
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 29, 2018
Unfortunately for Ingraham, Hogg found her apology disingenuous. He told CNN that it “was kind of expected, especially after so many advertisers dropped out.”
He also found it “disturbing to know that somebody can bully so many people and just get away with it, especially to the level that she did.”
He recalled Ingraham telling Cleveland Cavaliers basketball player LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” after he made political statements. He also said that Ingraham is “a bully is a bully, and it’s important that you stand up to them.”
Concerning the advertisers who dropped Ingraham, he said that he is “glad to see corporate America standing with me and the other students of Parkland … Because when we work together, we can accomplish anything.”
Ingraham is currently off air for Easter vacation, which Fox News told the Washington Post was “preplanned.”
