Conservative news networks have made a big show out of opposing vaccine mandates, even letting their hosts rail against them on-air. Of course, it’s all a sham: These joints are as terrified of a highly transmissible virus as anyone else. Fox News requires its on-site employees either get vaxxed or tested, and so does Newsmax, their low-rent-ier cousin. And while someone like Tucker Carlson has so far refused to put his money where his mouth is and quit in protest, one of his Newsmax colleagues just did.
As per The Daily Beast, Steve Cortes, a former Trump adviser-turned-Newsmax host, is out at the station after a long battle with his employers over their safety measures. He’s been very public about it, rage-tweeting against them after they announced their mandate in early November.
“I will not comply w/ any organization’s attempt to enforce Biden’s capricious & unscientific Medical Apartheid mandates,” he wrote. “I will not be forced into the injection, nor will I disclose my vaccination status. No one should be pressured to choose between medical privacy & their job.”
I will not comply w/ any organization’s attempt to enforce Biden’s capricious & unscientific Medical Apartheid mandate.
I will not be forced into the injection, nor will I disclose my vaccination status.
No one should be pressured to choose between medical privacy & their job.
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) November 6, 2021
Three weeks later Cortes was shown the door. His final prime time broadcast will air early next week, if not sooner, sources say.
It’s far from the first clash between the Trumpist network and the Trumpist personality. Since he was hired to co-host a show with Jenn Pellegrino only six months back, he has reportedly sparred with the network, partly due to such dodgy beliefs as the “Big Lie,” which he continued to spout even as his employers dealt with lawsuits from both Smartmatic and Dominion over their false claims of voter fraud.
Though Cortes was likely hired to peel off viewers who find Fox News insufficiently conspiracy-minded, the resulting show, Cortes & Pellegrino, was never a hit, pulling in a fraction of its competitors Hannity and The Rachel Maddow Show, which air at the same time. It is, indeed, one of the network’s lowest rated weekday programs, falling behind even mid-afternoon shows like American Agenda and Eric Bolling: The Balance.
Still, maybe OANN’s hiring.
(Via The Daily Beast)