Fox News host Laura Ingraham intended to interview author Steve Almond about the NFL and player safety Wednesday following Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest during a game earlier this week. But she got an earful about the conservative channel’s fearmongering tactics and its sexual-harassment scandal. (Watch the videos below.)
In one cheeky exchange, Almond, the author of the book “Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto,” told Ingraham:
“I’m focused on the fans and what I essentially believe is not that any government ban is going to make football safer, and certainly not some mythic woke mob that you mentioned to try to scare your viewers,” he said.
Football is “not about politics,” Ingraham replied. “You’re making it about politics.”
“Oh I think that’s your entire economic model,” Almond said. “Your entire economic model is to scare your viewers. That’s your whole gig.”
Almond compared the NFL’s “PR problem” to Ingraham’s right-wing channel.
“It’s like at Fox News when you have hosts who are allegedly sexually harassing people,” he said. “Fox News throws money at that to make that PR problem go away.”
Almond also trolled Ingraham personally by mentioning her apology to gun reform activist David Hogg after she mocked him for being rejected by UCLA admissions.
Asserting that sports and news put money at the forefront, Almond said:
“A couple of years ago when you taunted a survivor of the Parkland mass shooting, you apologized only because advertisers withdrew from your show.”
“Nice try, buddy,” she said.
Interview over. But Almond had made his point.
Posting a clip of the interview later, he mocked the host on Twitter.
