On Tuesday, Turning Point USA sent a strongly worded cease and desist letter to Disney-owned ABC News, demanding that the network “retract the defamatory statements” made on “The View” earlier this week or face legal action.
“The false statements of fact intentionally made during The View’s July 25th segment were unquestionably harmful to TPUSA’s reputation and brought the organization and its student affiliates into disrepute with the public, potential donors, and current and future business partners, posing a significant financial loss to the organization,” the letter said.
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ABC News Has Been Told To Stop Making Defamatory Claims
The letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, is addressed to Joshua Hoyos, the bureau chief for ABC News in New York, and Ian Rosenberg, the assistant chief counsel for ABC News. It claims that “The View” has made “false, derogatory, and defamatory statements” about the organization’s recent Student Action Summit.
In spite of repeated attempts, no one from ABC News could be reached for comment.
The daytime talk show began its coverage of the TPUSA Student Action Summit, which took place over the weekend in Tampa, Florida, on Monday. Joy Behar criticized the group because neo-Nazi protestors were outside the venue, and the co-hosts of “The View” said the elaborate event took “a page from the WWE” simply because of special effects.
Just like Goebbels did in the Third Reich, a group of neo-Nazis stood in front of the conference shouting anti-Semitic slurs and waving pictures of a caricatured Jew. Behar remarked, “It’s the same thing; it comes from the same playbook.
After saying that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis “did nothing,” she conveniently left out the fact that the Republican governor had attended the event the day before the neo-Nazis showed up.
The neo-Nazi protesters had “nothing to do” with Turning Point USA, the organization, which was later made clear to viewers via an on-air legal disclaimer read during “The View.”
“But you let them in, and you knew what they were,” Whoopi Goldberg inaccurately said before the panelists were forced to read another disclaimer and explain the neo-Nazis were “outside protestors,” and TPUSA didn’t let them in. “My point was metaphorical,” Goldberg said.
Veronica Peterson, in-house counsel at TPUSA, was unsatisfied with the on-air disclaimers and wrote the scathing cease and desist letter.
The hosts of The View deliberately and falsely linked TPUSA to the neo-Nazi protesters outside the event, painting TPUSA in a false and derogatory light that damaged its reputation. There would be no tolerance for such behavior, the letter warned.
“Specifically, The View hosts insidiously and cavalierly stated that TPUSA ‘let [neo-Nazis] in’ to its SAS event, metaphorically ‘embrase[d] them’ and that neo-Nazis were ‘in the mix of people.’ The assertion that TPUSA is complicit or affiliated in any way with the neo-Nazi protesters outside the event is outlandish, false, defamatory, and disgraceful,” the letter continued.
“Even after Ms. Haines reluctantly read the TPUSA statement that it condemns the group of neo-Nazis and that the group had nothing to do with TPUSA, its event, or its student attendees, Ms. Goldberg continues the false tirade against TPUSA, asserting that somehow the organization and its attendees were ‘complicit’ and/or associated with the outside protest.”
Peterson said, “To be abundantly clear, TPUSA aggressively and completely condemns the ideologies of neo-Nazism and has zero connection to the protestors outside the event. Since these individuals were located on public property, TPUSA security attempted to, but was not permitted to remove them.”
In addition, the letter stated that TPUSA is “a tax-exempt public charity under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3)” and is therefore not associated with the Republican Party.
“In cases where the communication is of such a nature that the court can presume as a matter of law that the communication will tend to degrade or disgrace the party defamed, special damages are presumed,” the letter said. “Therefore, TPUSA demands that ABC immediately cease and desist from further unlawfully defaming TPUSA, retract the defamatory statements identified above, and issue a public statement apologizing for and correcting the above defamatory and false statements.”
The letter demanded an apology and retraction by July 27 from ABC News.
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