Just days after Trish Regan created a mini-firestorm by calling coronavirus coverage “another attempt to impeach the president,” Fox Business announced that her prime-time program is going on hiatus.
The network, whose parent company Fox Corp. FOXA, -0.27% shares common ownership with News Corp NWSA, +13.56% , parent of MarketWatch publisher Dow Jones, announced Friday that “Trish Regan Primetime” and “Kennedy,” helmed by Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, would be off the air until further notice.
“Due to the demands of the evolving pandemic crisis coverage, we are deploying all resources from both shows for staffing needs during critical market hours,” the network said in a statement, as reported by Deadline.
Regan tweeted that she supported the decision, as “we must all do our part to keep colleagues safe”:
On Monday night, Regan incurred the wrath of many with a segment in which she accused Democrats and the “liberal media” of using the coronavirus to “destroy the president,” going so far as to say that Democrats were blaming Trump for the COVID-19 pandemic:
“We’ve reached a tipping point,” she said, as a graphic reading “Coronavirus Impeachment Scam” appeared on the screen beside her. “The chorus of hate being leveled at the president is nearing a crescendo,” she intoned, “as Democrats blame him and only him for a virus that originated halfway around the world. This is yet another attempt to impeach the president.”
On the Fox News channel, “Fox & Friends” guest Jerry Falwell Jr. came in for criticism earlier in the week after suggesting that North Korea created the coronavirus to hurt America. Like Regan, he argued that concern over the virus was being weaponized as the “next attempt to get Trump,” and claimed people were “overreacting” to the pandemic, which has spread to 147,838 people and killed 5,539 across the globe.
Fox News staffers were asked this week to “keep in mind that viewers rely on us to stay informed during a crisis of this magnitude and we are providing an important public service to our audience by functioning as a resource for all Americans.” It’s scrapping live guests in favor of Skype interviews, encouraging workers to telecommute, and ramping up sanitization efforts in the workplace, according to a memo obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Beast and other news outlets.
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