And?...You realize businesses run commercials more than once for a reason, right? Do you think there may be a reason why they spend gobs of money to run a national commercial several times? Why not just run 1 if the subsequent viewings are irrelevant?

Their viewership (especially Alex Stein) and subscriptions will rise more because of this than it would have if they were just ignored. They dangled a hook and worm in front of people, and they took it.

One of the main messages they push is freedom of speech is under attack and they used the protesters as pawns to demonstrate it.

And this protest just gave them validation and national attention. They are both actually happy with the result. Whether the protestors are on the right moral side or not is irrelevant to the fact that the result is conflicting with their purpose. It's like someone threatens to damage your house and you burn it down before they have a chance to. Good work. Best result would have been to ignore it and let those few people have their little party in anonymity.