Newsmax host Steve Cortes on Friday suggested that he will defy a COVID vaccine mandate issued by his own network on Thursday in the wake of the Biden administration’s new requirements for companies with 100 or more employees.
“I will not comply w/ any organization’s attempt to enforce Biden’s capricious & unscientific Medical Apartheid mandate. I will not be forced into the injection, nor will I disclose my vaccination status,” Cortes tweeted late Friday. “No one should be pressured to choose between medical privacy & their job.”
That tweet came hours after Mediaite reported that Newsmax sent a staff-wide email Thursday requiring that all employees either offer or proof of vaccination or submit to weekly COVID testing by January 4, 2022 to comply with rules by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA).
On his show on Thursday, Cortes called the regulations issued by the Biden administration “dictatorial rule.”
It’s unclear if Cortes will also refuse to submit to weekly COVID testing, an avenue available to workers under both OSHA rules and Newsmax’s policies if anyone refuses vaccination or even disclosure of their vaccination status.
A representative for Newsmax did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Cortes is just one of several Newsmax hosts who have been critical of the COVID-19 vaccines as well as of vaccination requirements. Earlier this week, White House correspondent Emerald Robinson was taken off the air after she warned “Christians” on Twitter that the vaccine contained a “bioluminescent marker” used to track people and that the shot had ominous Biblical parallels — claims that have no basis in fact.