Harris Faulkner Torches Chik

Fox News host Harris Faulkner torched the CEO of fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, accusing the devout Christian of saying some "amazingly crazy stuff" in an unearthed video of him condemning racism.

Chik-fil-A is the latest victim of an explosion of boycotts against companies like Bud Light and Target, which has been drummed up by right-wing activists online. The chicken chain, once a darling of conservatives because of its open embrace of Christian values, is now under fire because of the years-old comments from its CEO, as well as its corporate embrace of diversity and inclusion.

On Fox News, Faulkner covered the backlash.

"We didn't even know this existed — watch this!" Faulkner exclaimed before playing a video of CEO Dan Cathy from June 2020.

In the video, Cathy, a devout Christian, told a story about an elderly African-American man at a Christian revival.

"At that revival, in the front seat, there was an older African-American man that was sitting there, and this young man got up," Cathy said. "And he’d been so gripped with conviction about the racism that was in that local community in a small town in Texas, that he took a shoe brush and walked over to this elderly gentleman and knelt on his knees and began to shine his shoes."

At this point in the video, Cathy stood up with a shoe shine brush in his hand.

"I invite folks to put some words to action here," Cathy said, while approaching and kneeling in front of a Black man sharing the stage. "And if we need to find somebody that needs to have their shoes shined, we need to go over and shine their shoes."

The video then jumped to Cathy back in his seat, saying, "Any expressions of a contrite heart begins with an apologetic heart. I think that's what our world needs to hear today."

The Fox chyron proclaimed, "DAN CATHY: WHITE PEOPLE MUST REPENT FOR RACISM." Underneath was a graphic saying, "War on Woke."

Faulkner's guest, radio host Jason Rantz, said, "There's pandering that goes on that I think is more offensive than anything else. On the one hand, I don't like the idea that we’re looking for things to be offended by on the right. But on the other hand, that is the exact kind of nonsense we have to push back against. "

The far-right Twitterverse blew up over Cathy's comments this week, with journalist Benny Johnson calling Chik-fil-A, "the biggest fraud ever pulled on American Christians."

Benny Johnson: "Go read your Gospels. Let me tell you someone who wasn't tolerant – Christ. Tolerance is not a Christian virtue" pic.twitter.com/DrpYb4KLCD

— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) May 31, 2023

Later, on Outnumbered, Faulkner said:

"Chick-fil-A, look, we played it last hour. We dug up that CEO and some pretty amazingly crazy stuff he said. But, you know, and it was offensive to a lot of people over the weekend, and that's why this story blew up. People felt like, well, you brought in race, you brought in all these things. You can get offended by a lot. But, can Chick-fil-A walk the plank, continue to have the value system it has, the delicious waffle fries — which are my spirit animal — and, at the same time, do DEI, which keeps everybody really happy in the corporate end. And, if their states start mandating it, some of these companies are going to have to start doing some things they said they’d never do."

Watch the Fox News clips above.

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