Actress Debra Messing has said that
she's “ashamed” that NBC ran an ad by the Trump campaign deemed
too racist by CNN.
“To our @willandgrace fans – I want
you to know that I am ashamed that my network aired this disgusting
racist ad,” Messing tweeted. “It is the antithesis of everything
I personally believe in, and what, I believe, our show is all about.
@nbc.”
Messing plays Grace Adler, an interior
designer, on the NBC comedy Will & Grace, the first prime
time network sitcom to feature a gay lead. The show has been
credited for helping advance the LGBT rights movement.
The ad, which President Donald Trump
tweeted, stokes fears of immigration and makes the claim that
Democrats let Mexican immigrant Luis Bracamontes, a convicted cop
killer, stay in the United States. The ad features Bracamontes
boasting about killing officers – “I'm going to kill more cops
soon,” he says – and immigrants flooding the southern border.
The ad is just part of the anti-immigrant rhetoric being used by the
president as a migrant caravan from Central America made mostly of
women and children fleeing gang violence, drug wars and corruption
heads to the United States.
Calling it “racist,” CNN refused to
run the ad. Fox News stopped running the ad on Sunday. On Monday,
NBC also pulled the ad.
“After further review we recognize
the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it
across our properties as soon as possible,” NBC Universal said in a
statement given to The New York Times.