Radio host loses show after berating landscape workers for speaking Spanish
A New Hampshire radio station has severed ties with a conservative radio host who filmed herself berating landscape workers for speaking Spanish.
The host, Dianna Ploss, recorded herself in a Facebook Live video Friday confronting several employees of Morin's Landscaping as they were setting up potted trees on Main Street in Nashua, New Hampshire, about 35 miles south of Concord, the capital. The video, which was viewed by NBC News, was taken down by Ploss but has been widely shared across social media platforms.
WSMN said in a statement Sunday that Ploss "is no longer associated or affiliated in any way with" WSMN or Bartis-Russell Broadcasting LLC.
"We at WSMN value freedom of speech, freedom of expression and assembly," the statement said. "We will not tolerate discrimination, racism or hatred."
The station added that it would continue to present and offer on-air opportunities for "discussion, education and the exchange of opinions and ideas."
Ploss, who hosted "The Dianna Ploss Show," did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
In the video, Ploss, an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, tells landscape workers: "It is America, you should be speaking English. They work for the state, you should be speaking English."
One of the workers responds that they did not work for the state.
Ploss then asks if any of the workers are in the country illegally.
Ploss is confronted in the video by a man having lunch nearby who asks why she is harassing the workers. "Are they in America?" she responds. The man says, "Yes." She replies: "OK. They should be speaking English."
The man asks her why. She says: "Are they illegal aliens? They don't speak the language?"
A short time later, Ploss turns the camera on herself.
"He’s a Black man, and he's going to protect the brown man from this white woman who's practicing white privilege because she happened to walk by and heard this guy talking to all of these guys, doing this work, in Spanish," she says into the camera.
Tom Morin, the owner of the landscaping company whose workers were targeted by Ploss, said he appreciated the support his company has received following the episode.
"The numerous phone calls, social posts, emails, voice messages and overall kind words are extremely encouraging and heartfelt," he said in a statement on the company's Facebook page. "I believe that we can all take immense pride in how quickly the community rallied to demonstrate that this type of behavior is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated."
Ploss has more than 46,000 followers on Facebook and more than 34,000 on Twitter. She hosts weekly shows on Facebook Live.
In a public video posted Monday to her Facebook page, Ploss, wearing a "Women for Trump" hat and sitting next to a cardboard cutout of the president, said she regretted taking down the video from Friday and did so against her better judgment.
"Here's what I have to say to those who have attacked me: Blank you," she said.
"Now get out of my way, because I have a country to save," she added. “That’s the end of Dianna Ploss's public statement."
