NBC fires Trump, drops pageants over candidate’s insults to Mexicans

NBC said sister show “Celebrity Apprentice” licensed from United Artists Media Group would continue.

The last season of Celebrity Apprentice averaged about 7.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen, which measures viewership.

Trump said on Monday that he stood by his comments.

“If NBC is so weak and so foolish to not understand the serious illegal immigration problem in the United States, coupled with the horrendous and unfair trade deals we are making with Mexico, then their contract violating closure of Miss Universe/Miss USA will be determined in court,” Trump’s statement said.

The Miss USA show that aired on a Sunday in June 2014 averaged about 5.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen. It said the Miss Universe show that aired on a Sunday in January 2015 averaged about 7.7 million viewers. By comparison, the series finale of popular TV period drama “Mad Men” drew 3.3 million.

In the aftermath of Trump’s June 16 comments, Mexicans rich and poor, cabinet ministers and staunch critics of the government alike reacted angrily.

On Monday, a television company owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim canceled a project with Trump, Slim’s spokesman and son-in-law Arturo Elias said.

Ora TV, owned by Slim and TV personality Larry King, was working with some of Trump’s companies.

“His statement was totally out of line … working with someone so closed-minded was not going to work,” Elias said, adding that the comments were racist.

On Monday, when Trump spoke to a sold-out crowd of 350 people at the City Club in Chicago, a crowd of protesters, many of them Latinos, demonstrated outside, Chicago media reported. “Trump is a racist,” they shouted.

Political analysts have said Trump, despite being one of America’s most recognizable figures, is considered a long shot for the Republican Party nomination in the field of more than a dozen candidates.

(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru, Jennifer Saba in New York and Steve Holland in Washington- Writing by Grant McCool– Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)