Former Newsmax presenter Stinchfield Level took aim at his successor Eric Bolling on Wednesday, asking him to “sue your plastic surgeon” after the former Fox News star hit him and other right-wing figures for baselessly linking the COVID-19 vaccine to an NFL player’s cardiac arrest.
Shortly after the Buffalo Bills were safe, Damar Hamlin collapsed Monday night and was given CPR on the field, Stinchfield joined in. Other prominent anti-vaxxers when blaming Hamlin’s life-threatening incident on the NFL’s vaccination mission. Conspiracy theorists and MAGA conspiracy theorists have rally around the #DiedSuddenly movementfalsely claiming that young athletes are as bad as flies because of vaccinations.
While the specter of right hand crank use Hamlin’s medical emergency to brazenly call out the anti-vaccination crowd expected response has been drawnBolling also marvels at the desired plots.
During a primetime Newsmax broadcast on Tuesday, the conservative presenter criticized “opportunists who took advantage of the moment to score political points” over vaccines when “a young man lay dying and dying, literally, in an instant.” And while he didn’t directly mention Stinchfield in his monologue, his production team taped the former Newsmax star’s tweet to the screen.
“These people have lost all compassion and the only emotion they can muster is opportunism,” continued Bolling. “And for what? Be the first to be able to tell some Twitter followers that you’re the first to blame vaccines? Are we so empty? Are we so empty that we need to make the first comment on a divisive issue that we ignore what’s happening on that pitch right there?
Bolling, who recently let Disgraced journalist Lara Logan blasphemy blood and impartiality QAnon’s theories on his show go on to criticize anti-vaxxers for linking heart-related athlete deaths to vaccines. At the same time, however, he assures viewers that he is “vehemently resisting orders” and feels vaccination should be a personal choice.
It didn’t take long for Stinchfield to respond in a predictable Trumpian fashion.
“Eric Bolling, buddy, this is how you lose touch,” exclaimed Stinchfield in a video posted to his social media account. “You literally called me an opportunist when I was trying to save people! But you don’t understand all that, do you?
Before Newsmax canceled my prime hour program unexpectedly in June of last year and replacing him with Bolling, Stinchfield was outspoken in his objection to his refusal to do the scenes. In fact, the host of Newsmax at that time unable to attend his network’s holiday party in December 2021 as the site requires proof of vaccination.
“Look, if I were President Trump, I could do a massive takedown like this. President Trump will say something like Eric Bolling, who had a low IQ, failed ratings, whose career was swept away and had to be the pet dog for executives at Newsmax.” Stinchfield continued in his video, which was filmed as he walked along a street. “And he will follow their orders at all costs because he can’t get a job anywhere else.”
Bolling, who farewell to Fox News in 2017 amid allegations of sexual misconduct, join Newsmax in 2021 after a stint at local TV giant Sinclair. Stinchfield, who has now lost his job at NRA-TV and Newsmax, is currently hosting a podcast and was recently a guest broadcast on a little-known Christian network.
“Eric, I will say this. Before you attack your friends, why don’t you look in the mirror and see if you like what you see? And then maybe you should sue your plastic surgeon for embarrassing you,” Stinchfield scoffed in his Twitter video. “But I am not President Trump. I am more beautiful than that.”
He concluded irritably: “Eric, listen to me. I can help you. I know your rating is not the same as mine. Just call me! I texted you. You can message me back. I got all kinds of advice. I can help you get your ratings back to normal. But continue the attack and put me in the great army of Tucker Carlson – you attacked both of us. I guess any publicity is good publicity, so in the end, I should thank you.
After he was effectively fooled by Newsmax when the network pulled the show into his prime time slot, Stinchfield claims he was canceled by the conservative channel for refusing to go after Carlson to boost his ratings. (Stinchfield’s show aired opposite the Carlson primetime Fox News program.) Meanwhile, Bolling had exploding many times his former Fox colleagues, especially on Carlson’s Kremlin-friendly rhetoric since Russia invaded Ukraine.
As for TV ratings, Bolling’s viewership was largely on par with that of Stinchfield’s. During the last month of Newsmax, his show has an average of 198,000 viewers and 29,000 in the primary advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds, and ranked fourth in the cable news time slot. during that time whole first quarter of Bolling’s shows airing in prime time, the former Fox star drew 207,000 viewers overall and 23,000 in the demo and finished fourth in the 8pm slot.
