Caught in the soup

Campbell says sorry in migrant rant

Campbell Soup’s interim chief executive apologized for a tweet from one of the company’s senior employees that peddled a conspiracy theory about the migrant caravan headed to the US-Mexico border.

Kelly Johnston, Campbell’s vice president of government affairs — who had tweeted Monday that billionaire George Soros was deploying “rail cars” to transport a caravan of immigrants trying to enter the US illegally — will leave the company next month as part of a previously planned exit, a Campbell spokesperson said Wednesday.

Campbell interim Chief Executive Keith McLoughlin apologized in a letter to Soros’ Open Society Foundation, saying that Johnston’s comments “do not represent the position of Campbell and are inconsistent with how Campbell approaches public debate.”

“In August, [Johnston] informed the company of his plans to depart Campbell in early November, and we will continue on that timeline,” McLoughlin said in the letter to Open Society’s president Tuesday.

On Monday, Johnston posted a photo of the caravan from his Twitter account and claimed Open Society was involved.

“See those vans on the right? What you don’t see are the troop carriers and the rail cars taking them north,” Johnston wrote from his now-deleted Twitter account.

“@OpenSociety planned and is executing this, in- cluding where they defecate. And they have an army of American immigration lawyers waiting at the border,” he added.

Open Society denied it was funding the effort in a tweet Tuesday. On Tuesday, the foundation’s president, Patrick Gaspard, called on Campbell to “condemn” Johnston’s views.

“I respect the swift and unambiguous denouncement of the mistruths of their soon to be retired executive,” said Open Society Foundations President Patrick Gaspard