Fox News primetime host Sean Hannity went on a wild rant against The New York Times and Washington Post Wednesday night – bashing writers from the newspapers, making fun of their names, and even going as far as to threaten to sue the media.

Hannity sounded off on an op-ed by New York Times opinion writer Kara Swisher – which led to a dust-up on Twitter Wednesday. continued to take aim at the writer on his program while calling on her to make a correction to her op-ed. In the column, Swisher called out Hannity for downplaying the coronavirus — influencing elderly viewers like her mother to believe that the threat is “overblown.”

“One far-left media mob maniac over at The New York Times using the virus to attack her least favorite network and yours truly…accusing Fox News of putting her mother and the elderly people at risk,” Hannity stated. “Now, if she actually watched our coverage and cared about truth, actually she should put a correction in her newspaper. We would know that we reported without fear from the very beginning.”

The record, however, shows that Hannity did indeed downplay the virus, even after most others began to recognize the threat. On March 10, the Fox News host stated (via the Washington Post), “So far in the United States, there’s been around 30 deaths, most of which came from one nursing home in the state of Washington….healthy people; generally, 99 percent recover very fast, even if they contract it.”

On March 9, Hannity suggested the impact of the virus was being exaggerated and used as a political weapon against President Donald Trump.

“This scaring the living hell out of people — I see it, again, as like, ‘let’s bludgeon Trump with this new hoax,’” Hannity said on that broadcast (via Vox).

After bashing Swisher and the Times, the Fox News host then set his sights on the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, calling him, “Eric Pimple.”

“You got this idiot over The Washington Post, ‘Eric Pimple’ is his name. Washington Post, poor guy, he can’t even get in the printed edition. Can’t even get 100,000 Twitter followers. Poor Eric. Anyway, he wants me fired,” Hannity said — referencing a column in which he called for the Fox News host to lose his job.

Hannity added, “And by the way, Eric the pimple, he jumped for joy writing CNN and ‘MSNDNC’ refused to carry the full Trump coronavirus briefing.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2R3d9JQ