A CNN correspondent misgendered trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney during a Tuesday segment on Bud Light’s faltering sales spurred by backlash from right-wing personalities like musician Kid Rock.
On CNN News Central, anchor Kate Bolduan began by noting that the beer giant’s sales fell 28 percent over the last month. That finding indicates a relatively lengthy period of lackluster sales, as data showing the company was taking a financial hit was released back in April when right-wingers decided to make Mulvaney marketing Bud Light a controversial issue.
Bolduan then introduced CNN National Correspondent Ryan Young, who had conducted street interviews on the lingering culture war flashpoint with two individuals who seemed to support the boycott, and one who appeared not to.
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“It’s quite simple: people just don’t want it shoved down their throat,” said one man critical of the marketing campaign.
A woman chimed in along the same lines: “No Bud Light, because it’s like, I have grandchildren. We don’t need to put that in the young kids’ heads.”
A third person told Young how he was in a bar when another patron said he was done drinking Bud Light. “And everybody else in the bar kind of rolled their eyes at him,” he recalled.
Young went on to give an example of how Bud Light has also received negative attention from the pro-LGTBQ side after it distanced itself from Mulvaney.
In Chicago, Young said, “One bar was telling us basically [that] they’re not going to serve it because they don’t like the way Dylan Mulvaney was treated after this whole controversy started.” (Young later added that he returned to that bar to find Bud Light was being served.)
Young then explained who Mulvaney is, but used the incorrect pronoun.
“He, of course, is the transgender person they were going to sponsor and go along with, with Bud Light,” Young said. “But they didn’t like how Bud Light didn't stand by him after all this.”
In a separate segment on Tuesday, Young said that a visit to Kid Rock’s namesake Nashville bar showed that, despite the musician angrily shooting up cans of Bud Light and campaigning for a boycott, the product was still available for purchase.
