Fox News hosts admit the network has a strict COVID-19 vaccine and testing policy — while they celebrate job walkouts over such mandates elsewhere

Fox News’ utter hypocrisy on COVID-19 health policies was on full display Wednesday morning. In a segment of Fox & Friends hyping the threat of job walkouts from the supposed tyranny of vaccination and mask requirements, the hosts briefly admitted that Fox News itself has enacted these exact mandates.

This is, of course, the network that undermined vaccines nearly every day over a six-month period and has sought to turn vaccine resisters into culture war heroes. But those resisters out there would have a hard time getting jobs at Fox — and Fox’s own on-air commentators are in no rush to join the resisters in the ranks of the unemployed.

Co-host Brian Kilmeade pointed out that the Fox News control room staffers were all wearing masks, to which co-host Ainsley Earhardt added, “Yeah, they have to wear masks, because they’re very close to one another.”

Co-host Steve Doocy then explained on the air what has already been reported elsewhere: Fox News has a policy for its own workforce of requiring vaccination or daily COVID-19 testing — which is even more stringent than anything the Biden administration has enacted.

Co-host Brian Kilmeade shot back at the wave of corporations adopting similar policies: “Fantastic. Be prepared to lose 10 to 15% of your workforce. I hope that's OK” — and yet, he has not quit his job at Fox.

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Citation From the October 20, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends

STEVE DOOCY:  Right, I mean, our company — like a lot of companies have vaccine requirements — we either had to have gotten the shots, or get tested every day. And when we're in common areas, everybody needs to wear a mask. There are a lot of companies coast to coast, I was just looking at brand new ones — General Electric, Union Pacific are requiring their employees to get the shots. They’ve joined Tyson Food, Walmart, Boeing, IBM, Raytheon, already on board. What's happening now here in New York City — 

BRIAN KILMEADE: So they're saying get the shot or you’re fired.  

DOOCY: Essentially. 

AINSLEY EARHARDT: Some of them are saying you can get tested. 

KILMEADE: Fantastic. Be prepared to lose 10 to 15% of your workforce. I hope that's OK.

Later in the segment, the three co-hosts discussed stories across the country of police and firefighter unions defying vaccine mandates from their city governments, as Fox played b-roll video of a group of unvaccinated police and firefighters in Seattle marching to turn in their boots. (To be clear, over 90% of police and fire staff in Seattle have complied with the mandate.)

When Doocy pointed out that New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea supported the mandate in that city — and that two police officers died of COVID-19 there just last week — Kilmeade shot back: “We have this thing called individual decisions as a country.”

Toward the end of the segment, the show played a clip of Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asking White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday about the purported danger of “tons of police and military” walking off the job. (Psaki asked Doocy to name where “tons of police and military” were actually walking off the job.)

The video also showed Psaki’s response to Doocy that “more than 700,000 people have died of COVID — again, it was the number one cause of death among police departments and police officers.”

Cutting away from the clip, Steve Doocy said: “And so she’s essentially doubling down — these are the mandates by the federal government, and she’s not going to change that going forward.”

Earhardt then transitioned the discussion to the next topic, attempting to tie vaccination mandates to the ongoing supply-chain difficulties in the economy.

“And with so many people being forced to leave their jobs, it's only going to make it worse,” Earhardt said. “You’re going to have to wait longer, even longer, if the companies that are trying to deliver your goods to your home or your store, and they have these mask mandates or they have these vaccine mandates and people aren't going to comply, then they’re going to leave their jobs.”

And yet, Earhardt has not left her job — nor has Kilmeade, nor any of those people in the Fox News control room.