How often do you hear a network contributor none too subtly insinuate that he “despises” his own network’s primetime hosts?

While speaking to one of those hosts on that same network in primetime?

This isn’t the first time Rivera has grumbled — without naming names — about “vaccinated dick heads who urge the unvaccinated to ‘fight for their freedom'” but I’m surprised to see him double down on it. Everyone knows to whom he’s referring; you would think Fox management would tell him to cool it. Kudos to them for letting him speak his mind.

Who knows? Maybe they privately agree with him.

He was at it again on Twitter last night before taping Hannity’s show:

Nothing is more contemptible than vaccinated commentators urging their unvaccinated followers to fight (and die) for their freedom. It’s like the punk-safe on the street-urging the guy in the ledge to jump.

— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) November 10, 2021

Watch the exchange below towards the end of the segment with Dan Bongino to see him stress the point to Hannity’s face. I’ll say two things in defense of the pro-Hannity side of this debate. First, Sean is right that workers should be able to submit an antibody test proving they’ve had COVID before in lieu of getting vaccinated. Ultimately we don’t care if someone’s had their shots, what we care about if whether they’re immune and therefore incapable (or at least at lower risk) of infecting others. That accommodation should be made for people with natural immunity assuming it doesn’t create any major administrative hardship.

Second, Geraldo’s point is dumb in the abstract. One can be vaccinated and believe as a matter of principle that it’s wrong to leverage economic power to coerce someone into getting vaccinated who’s reluctant to do so. It’s a bit like a military veteran believing that we shouldn’t have a draft. There’s no contradiction in believing that X is good but X shouldn’t be compulsory.

What irks Rivera, and me, though, is the suspicion that it’s not principle that’s driving the theatrical opposition to mandates in populist media but self-interest. Hannity and Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, all of whom are very likely vaccinated, could be evangelists for vaccination to their audiences while standing by their belief that no one should be coerced into it. Instead they devote much of their commentary to egging on skepticism of whether the vaccines work (Tucker) or boo-hooing about medical workers having to get a shot so that they don’t infect their vulnerable patients (Sean) or promoting de facto alternatives to vaccination like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine (Laura). Although they’d never cop to it, they’re pandering to anti-vax sentiment among their core audience by telling them what they want to hear. That’s the first rule of partisan media: Reinforce the audience’s beliefs even when they’re wrong. Even when it’s dangerous to their own health.

It’s the same reason Ron DeSantis’s and Greg Abbott’s message on vaccination lately seems to be one part pro-vax to 10 parts anti-mandate. Hardly anyone of any prominence on the right, Trump included, is anti-vax as it would be too irresponsible to overtly discourage people from getting the shot. The most one can do as a “responsible” governor or cable-news host who’s eager to ingratiate oneself to populists for electoral or financial reasons is to be what we might call anti-vax-adjacent. Obsess about mandates, spend all of your time railing against them, fight tooth and nail against them through all legal means, and then whisper under your breath, “But maybe think about getting vaccinated too.”

If Carlson were out there every night saying “I’m vaccinated and here are several reasons why you’d benefit from getting vaccinated but I don’t think you should be forced,” I think Geraldo would respect that. (He should respect it, at least.) But as it is, it’s the cynically malign self-interested motive, not the anti-mandate position per se, that I think he finds repulsive. Who can blame him?