Rep. Waltz blasts NBC's refusal to air his Olympics ad highlighting major companies' ties to 'genocide games'

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Rep. Waltz slams NBC for refusing to air his ad highlighting companies ties to 'genocide games'

NBC declined ad noting Visa, Proctor & Gamble, Nike, Coke's sponsorship of games hosted by Communist China amid Uyghur 'genocide', Waltz says on 'The Story'

Florida Republican congressman and retired Green Beret Michael Waltz blasted the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) after it refused to accept an ad he created to air during the Olympics that would have highlighted U.S. companies who are financially supporting what he called the "genocide games" and by extension, the Chinese Communist Party, in spite of its treatment of Uyghur Muslim minorities.

Waltz told Fox News on Monday during an appearance on ‘The Story’ that the ad also featured Turkish-American NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom – who has come under fire for being one of few U.S. athletes openly criticizing the actions of the brutal regime in Beijing.

"Just outside the show, rape, genocide, slave labor -- American companies are drunk on Chinese dollars – entangled with Communist dictators committing atrocities," Waltz says in the ad.

UNITED STATES - AUGUST 24: Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., conducts a news conference with House Republicans in the Capitol Visitor Center. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The lawmaker, who represents St. Augustine and Daytona Beach, told host Martha MacCallum that ad time had been purchased for later Monday evening, but that NBC instead demanded "material changes" – which consisted notably of removing all of the corporate logos of Olympics sponsors that he highlighted. NBC-Universal is owned by Philadelphia-based Comcast.

Companies including Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, Cincinnati-based Proctor & Gamble, and San Francisco-based Visa, are highlighted in the ad for their sponsorship of the Beijing games.

The corporate logos were "kind of the point," Waltz told MacCallum. "This was a non-rejection rejection. At the end of the day, NBC is doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party and all of these companies that preach social justice here at home are turning a blind eye to it."

Waltz called the ongoing Uyghur internment "the greatest and most disturbing, disgusting genocide since the Holocaust."

"They're complicit."

He noted that Kanter Freedom appears in the ad's conclusion to call on viewers to "stop funding dictatorships" and "defund the dictators."

"When you see Made In China…" Kanter Freedom adds. "Put it down," concludes Waltz.

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In response, NBC-Universal said in a statement to Fox News that under "NBC-Universal's long-standing advertising guidelines, changes to the ad were requested so it could air." 

Waltz further wondered aloud what happened to a Uyghur torch-bearer he believed to be "coerced" by the government into a propagandistic show of solidarity during the games' opening ceremonies. He pointed out that not much has been heard from Peng Shuai, another Chinese athlete who made a "credible sexual assault allegation" against a CCP official that she later retracted and denied.

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"At the end of the day, these companies like Nike, who get their cotton from western China, Coca-Cola that gets its sugar [there], are benefiting and profiting off of modern-day slavery. And again, we're going to call out that hypocrisy in the American people in the wake of COVID are waking up to it," he said, as some experts say the virus originated from a Chinese lab in Hubei Province.

"Martha, when the Chinese Communist Party is threatening to turn off our pharmaceuticals and our supply chains that make our economy go, they know that this is not a jobs or a human rights issue. It's a national security issue."

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Waltz noted that the International Olympic Committee is also involved in allowing the games to go forward in China amid its multiple controversies, despite their previous ban on games and athletes from South Africa in response to Apartheid.

"The American people see through the hypocrisy, whether it's these companies or the IOC -- and that's why NBC's ratings are in the tank. They've only had about half the viewership that they've had before and again, but we need a real wake-up call across the country," he said.

Chinese security stand guard outside the National Indoor Stadium ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022, in Beijing.  (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Recent statistics showed that NBC's Beijing 2022 Olympics coverage ratings for the first part of the games are the worst in recent times, surpassing the previous low record set by the 1988 Winter Olympiad in Calgary, A.B.

"NBC's censorship and attempt to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party has only put a bigger spotlight on [the ad]," Waltz concluded.

MacCallum later added that "The Story" will continue to highlight China's Uyghur scandal during the Olympics because other networks like those owned by NBC-Universal will likely continue to refuse to offer such reportage.

The International Olympics Committee's chairman, gold-medal-winning German fencer Thomas Bach, was recently asked about the games' location given the treatment of Uyghurs.

"The position of the IOC must be given the political neutrality that we are not commenting on political issues," Bach said, adding that "taking a political standpoint" puts the games at risk, and that if games only included countries with governments that agree on every situation, it would doom the Olympiad.