Fox News host Laura Ingraham is scheduled to interview author Steve Almond about the NFL and player safety on Wednesday following Damar Hamlin’s heart attack during a game earlier this week. But he knows about conservative channels’ fear tactics and sexual harassment scandals. (See the video below.)
In one cheeky exchange, Almond, author of “Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto,” told Ingraham:
“I focus on the fans and what I want is that there are no government restrictions that will make football safer, and certainly there are no mythical crowds that you mention to scare the spectators,” he said.
Football “isn’t about politics,” Ingraham replied. “You make it about politics.”
“Oh, I think that’s all your economic model,” Almond said. “Your whole economic model is to scare the audience. That’s your whole gig.”
Almond compared the NFL’s “PR problem” to Ingraham’s right-wing channel.
“It’s like on Fox News when you have a host who is allegedly harassing people,” he said. “Fox News is spending money to fix that PR problem.”
Almond also trolled Ingraham personally by saying she apologized to gun reform activist David Hogg after he was mocked for being denied admission by UCLA.
Emphasizing that sports and news are making money at the front, Almond said:
“A couple of years ago when you mocked the survivors of the Parkland mass shooting, you just apologized because advertisers pulled from your show.”
“Good try, buddy,” she said.
The interview ended. But Almond has declared him.
Posting a clip of the interview later, he mocked the host on Twitter.