After drawing criticism for airing an interview with right-wing firebrand Alex Jones, advertisers are pulling out of NBC’s Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly. The interview will air Sunday night, the third episode of Kelly’s new weekly news magazine.

Jones — a right-wing conspiracy theorist who runs the website Infowars — has stated publicly that he believes the shootings of 20 school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School were staged by the Obama administration as a means to advance its gun-control agenda. He has forwarded similar theories about the movie-theater shootings in Aurora, Colo., that also took place in 2012.

As a result, victims’ family members and survivors are opposing the interview, and some advertising are choosing not to advertise in the upcoming episode, reports CNN.

J.P. Morgan Chase is the only national advertiser that’s been identified publicly, with the company’s Chief Marketing Officer Kristin Lemkau tweeting:

According to CNN, many of the other advertisers pulling out are local, and their ads will not air on the NBC-owned station or affiliate in their market.

in response to the controversy, Kelly put out a statement saying: “President Trump, by praising and citing him, appearing on his show, and giving him White House press credentials, has helped elevate Jones, to the alarm of many. Our goal in sitting down with him was to shine a light — as journalists are supposed to do — on this influential figure, and yes — to discuss the considerable falsehoods he has promoted with near impunity.”

Kelly also was dropped as host of a gala in Washington, D.C., that is being held Wednesday evening by Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit gun violence prevention group founded by victims’ families.

“Sandy Hook Promise cannot support the decision by Megyn or NBC to give any form of voice or platform to Alex Jones and have asked Megyn Kelly to step down as our Promise Champion Gala host,” said Nicole Hockley, the organization’s co-founder and managing director, in a statement. “It is our hope that Megyn and NBC reconsider and not broadcast this interview.”

“I understand and respect the decision of the event organizers but I’m of course disappointed that I won’t be there to support them on Wednesday night,” Kelly also wrote. “I find Alex Jones’s suggestion that Sandy Hook was ‘a hoax’ as personally revolting as every other rational person does.”

At this point, however, NBC intends to go forward with the interview.

“This comes with the territory,” NBC News chairman Andy Lack told CNN on Tuesday. “We kind of know, when we’re doing controversial stories, that’s going to happen. It doesn’t stop us from doing controversial stories.”

Kelly jumped to NBC after leaving Fox News in January. Her Sunday night news magazine premiered June 4 and already has made waves, with critics saying that she was soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin in her opening-night interview.

Kelly also will host a weekday talk show on NBC starting this fall.

READ MORE: Variety, CNN

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