Political Cartoonist Fired After Illustration of Trump Golfing Over Dead Immigrants Goes Viral

Cartoon for June 26, 2019 on #trump #BorderCrisis #BORDER #TrumpCamps #TrumpConcentrationCamps pic.twitter.com/Gui8DHsebl

— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) June 26, 2019

A Canadian cartoonist’s contract was terminated Friday by a New Brunswick publishing company after he posted an illustration of Donald Trump playing golf over the drowned bodies of two migrants. As a result, the cartoonist’s work will no longer appear in four prominent Canadian publications.

The image referred to a photo published last week of Oscar Alberto Martinez and his 23-month-old daughter face down on the bank of the Rio Grande, drowned in attempts to cross the river from Mexico into Texas.

In the cartoon, Trump, golf club in hand, is saying, “Do you mind if I play through?”

The cartoonist, Michael de Adder, tweeted that every Trump cartoon he has submitted in the past year has been axed by the publishing company, Brunswick News Inc.

“It got to the point where I didn’t submit any Donald Trump cartoons for fear that I might be fired,” he said in a follow-up tweet.

De Adder seemed to believe the Trump golfing cartoon, which went viral last week, was directly related to the  termination of his contract:

But in the past 2 weeks I drew 3 Trump cartoons. 2 went viral and the third went supernova and a day later I was let go. And not only let go, the cartoons they already had in the can were not used. Overnight it was like I never worked for the paper. Make your own conclusions.

— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) July 1, 2019

Brunswick News Inc. responded Sunday with a statement refuting the rumors that they had cut ties with de Adder because of the cartoon. “This is a false narrative which has emerged carelessly and recklessly on social media,” the statement said. “BNI was not even offered this cartoon by de Mr. de Adder.”

The company claimed that they had been planning to bring back a reader favorite to replace de Adder for weeks.

The Brunswick newspapers have refused to publish Trump cartoons in the last few years, according to Wes Tyrell, a Canadian cartoonist who spoke with CNN.

This comes weeks after the New York Times decided to do away with political cartoons altogether after an anti-Semitic cartoon appeared in its international edition.

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