On-air legal disclaimers notwithstanding, Turning Point USA inside counsel Veronica Peterson wrote in the cease and desist letter, “The View hosts intentionally and falsely associated TPUSA with neo-Nazi protestors outside the event placing TPUSA in denigrating and false light and negatively impacting its public perception. Such action will not be tolerated.”
“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,” the letter said, also clarifying that as a 501(c)3 organization, Turning Point USA is not officially affiliated with the Republican Party either.
The letter gave a July 27 deadline to ABC News to “retract the defamatory statements identified above, and issue a public statement apologizing for and correcting the above defamatory and false statements,” otherwise they would seek “monetary and non-monetary damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees and costs.”
On Wednesday (July 27), “The View” honored Turning Point USA’s request and issued an on-air apology.
“So, on Monday, we talked about the fact that there were openly neo-Nazi demonstrators outside the Florida Student Action Summit of the Turning Point USA group,” Haines said. “We want to make clear that these demonstrators were gathered outside the event and that they were not invited or endorsed by Turning Point USA.”
“A Turning Point USA spokesman said the group ‘100 percent condemns those ideologies,’ and said Turning Point USA security tried to remove the neo-Nazis from the area but could not, because they were on public property,” Haines continued. “Also, Turning Point USA wanted us to clarify that this was a Turning Point USA summit and not a Republican Party event.”
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“So we apologize for anything we said that may have been unclear on these points,” the apology concluded.
