Black Rifle Coffee is a premium, small-batch, roast-to-order, veteran-owned coffee company based out of Utah. It has seen tremendous success over the past couple of years and has been dubbed the conservative alternative to Starbucks. But social media has been abuzz over the past few days regarding an interview Black Rifle CEO Evan Hafer gave to the New York Times Magazine. In response to the interview, The Post Millennial wrote that Black Rifle “goes woke, throws customers under the bus in bizarre NYT interview.” In addition, Newsmax said the company had called out some of its customers as “a repugnant group of people.”
Conservatives on Twitter expressed outrage.
“Black Rifle Coffee is DONE!” tweeted conservative author Nick Adams.
“It looks like Black Rifle Coffee, a company which became famous because of conservatives, is now trying to distance themselves from conservatives,” tweeted Brigitte Gabriel, the founder of ACT for America.
Something didn’t sound right about this.
Let’s get the air cleared right away. Black Rifle Coffee’s founder and CEO has spoken out and is disputing how his comments were presented by the New York Times and represented by those reacting to the article, who were led to believe that Black Rifle Coffee bashed conservatives.
Evan Hafer decided to set the record straight regarding the “significant amount of misinformation being put out on the internet” about Black Rifle Coffee and about statements that he has made.
Hafer quickly debunked the notion that he made derogatory remarks about BRCC’s customers or conservatives and then proceeded to explain how the New York Times deliberately twisted his words and took them out of context. According to Hafer, his conversation with the NYT Magazine reporter was in the context of racism and anti-Semitism in America in light of Hafer being the target of an organized attack last year because of “my last name and my heritage.”
“We were purely discussing that,” Hafer says, and he was not conflating those groups with conservatives.
“The New York Times, as we know, the chances of them being objective were fairly slim, but we gave them the opportunity,” he added. He went on to mention veterans issues he hoped to bring attention to. But, unfortunately, the New York Times chose to go with “the salacious headline” about the company instead.
Hafer reiterated that racists and anti-Semites have no place in his company.
“I really need you guys to get the facts straight on this, which is: There’s no chance in hell I’m gonna talk s–t about conservatives to the New York Times. It’s just not gonna happen.”
Watch Hafer’s entire explanation here:
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Hafer and BRCC co-founder Mat Best also spoke with Dana Loesch about the New York Times interview:
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about this situation is how many conservatives were quick to jump on the story, accepting that the New York Times Magazine had quoted the founders accurately. Don’t become the lynch mob that you hate—especially when you normally distrust mainstream media outlets like the New York Times. Conservatives are already targets of cancel culture, we shouldn’t be canceling conservative companies because of something published by the New York Times without verifying the story first.
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