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Both Delta Airlines and Bank of America have withdrawn their partnerships with the Public Theater after they opted to portray Julius Caesar as President Donald Trump — violently assassinated on the stage by senators.
The announcements that the corporations were pulling support came after Donald Trump Jr. took to Twitter on Sunday to question the funding of the offensive and disturbing production.
The New York Times, as we reported on Friday, also partners with the Public Theater and has stated that they will not withdraw their support.
On Sunday, the paper published an article about other corporations denouncing the mock assassination and pulling their funding — and announced that they would not be following suit.
“As an institution that believes in free speech for the arts as well as the media, we support the right of the Public Theater to stage the production as they chose,” the Times said in a statement.
The production is also partially taxpayer-funded through the National Endowment for the Arts, leading many to question whether or not our taxes should be paying for a mock assassination of our president.
“No matter what your political stance may be, the graphic staging of Julius Caesar at this summer’s Free Shakespeare in the Park does not reflect Delta Air Lines’ values,” a spokesperson for Delta, who has partnered with Public Theater for four years, said in a statement which was also posted to Twitter.
The statement continued on to say that “their artistic and creative direction crossed the line on the standards of good taste. We have notified them of our decision to end our sponsorship as the official airline of The Public Theater effective immediately.”
Bank of America, who has partnered with the organization for 11 years announced that they will no longer sponsor the Julius Caesar performance — but has not made a decision about their relationship with the Public Theater for future productions.
The “Shakespeare in the Park” production is a contemporary update on the original, does not refer to the president by name — but their Caesar character holds a striking resemblance to Trump and even has a wife with a Slavic accent similar to the First Lady.
During the play, the Caesar character is shown fully nude, as well as tweeting from a bathtub before being stabbed to death by female and minority senators as an American Flag hangs beside them.
The Times has an open hostility with Trump, his administration, and even his supporters.
Last Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey confirmed during his testimony before senate that the newspaper had published fake news about the president while claiming to have information from an anonymous source regarding contact between members of the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
“In the main, it was not true,” Comey said of their report.
On Saturday evening, the paper published a hit piece on Trump supporting journalist Jack Posobiec as well as the influential right-wing website Got News.
“As a Navy vet and former Philly construction worker, it is amazing to see my reporting reach he desks of the great Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Alex Jones, and the Oval Office. I work hard to maintain my standard of journalistic integrity and I don’t know if I will ever match the bar of the New York Times,” Posobiec told Big League Politics in a comment about the attack on his character by the newspaper. “Then again, the director of the FBI hasn’t ever testified under oath that I am fake news.”