‘You are a pest’: Hannity hurls insults at New York Times columnist who criticized Fox News coronavirus coverage

“You can relax, Sean Hannity, I’m not going to sue you,” Swisher wrote before claiming the network’s early coverage of the pandemic made her mother believe the virus was being “overblown by the mainstream news media.”

Swisher called out the network’s “on-air talent,” writing, they “did not mind being egregiously bad at their jobs when it came to giving out accurate health data” and said that her mother was not concerned about contracting the virus because “her primary source of news is Fox.”

Hannity rebuked the piece and repeatedly castigated Swisher on social media.

“Hey Kara whoever u are. I’ll accept you are a pest, but you are also ignorant, lazy and a total hypocrite,” he tweeted. Hannity later asked if she was “proud of your paper” printing a “garbage” opinion piece that questioned whether it was safe to travel to China and claimed that “the coronavirus travel ban is unjust and doesn’t work anyway.”

Hannity appeared to be referring to an opinion piece from Rosie Spinks, a global tourism reporter for Skift, which was published in the New York Times on Feb. 5.

Hannity also encouraged Swisher to file a lawsuit against him, despite her saying she had no intention of doing so, and claimed he would file a countersuit that “could be a landmark case!!”

Swisher responded to Hannity with jabs of her own and some humor. Swisher also reiterated she had no intention of suing Hannity or the network. In addition, Swisher posted a screenshot of a text message she said was from her mother imploring the prime-time host to “not use the terrible words against you.” Swisher’s mother, according to the text, prefers Bret Baier, one of the network’s news anchors, over Hannity, an opinion host.

The commentary by Swisher and the subsequent pushback from Hannity comes as Fox has faced scrutiny for its opinion hosts’ coverage of the coronavirus from the onset. Hannity claims he never downplayed the severity of the virus and accused Democrats of trying to use the pandemic to push their agenda as well as to “stop Donald Trump.”

“After a week of coronavirus-related panic, lies, propaganda, and misinformation, thankfully, the market is roaring back in a big way,” Hannity said during his opening monologue on his March 3 show. “It needs to be very clear to every American, the Democrats, the media mob, they will stop at nothing.”

“Their rage, hate Trump psychosis is even worse than I thought. … They’re now using the natural fear of a virus as a political weapon,” he added.

Such accusations against Democrats were echoed by former Fox Business anchor Trish Regan, who was let go from the network earlier this month. In its statement, the network made no mention of the backlash Regan faced for a monologue in which she claimed that Democrats and certain members of the media were using the coronavirus as a mechanism to remove President Trump from office.

Hannity’s and Regan’s commentary diverged from another prime-time host, Tucker Carlson, who had been sounding the alarm over the virus for weeks. He traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the first time earlier this month because, as Carlson put it, he felt a “moral obligation” to urge the president to take the pandemic seriously.