Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity duked it out Tuesday night over boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics, with Ingraham accusing Hannity of being “soft on the Chi-comms.”
While speaking on “The Ingraham Angle,” Hannity said he was “torn” over the boycotts after Ingraham asked if he was supporting her “Not One Minute” campaign that urges people not to watch the Olympics due to slave labor in China.
“I’m torn, and I’ll tell you why. My whole life, I never called for firings, I never support boycotts. I believe people have the right to choose. So, this is a little nuanced answer. The answer is, for all the reasons you stated, those are good reasons for people not to watch, but on the other hand, I don’t want to boycott it because I have great sympathy for the decades of-”
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“Okay, you can celebrate then when they come home,” Ingraham cut in.
“-of young people’s lives that they devote to their athletic endeavors. So I can’t go completely with you.” (RELATED: REPORT: Olympic Athletes Have Been Told To Stay Silent On Human Rights Violations While Competing In China)
“So you’re going soft on the Chi-comms. I can’t believe Hannity is going soft on the Chi-comms. It’s a huge P.R. coup for Xi,” Ingraham said.
“I’m being princ-imagine-,” Hannity began to say.
“It is a huge P.R. coup for him. How-” Ingraham argued.
“I know your kid – hang on. I know your kids. Imagine they work for 20 years of their life to get to the Olympics,” Hannity said.
“Guess what? There are things – no, no. We can celebrate and love our Olympians, which we do, we want them to clean it up and take home all the medals, but we’re not going to give NBC the Olympics a push and the money for slave labor Xi-ocide Olympics. No way. So that’s where we draw the line.”
“My answer is, I’m trusting people to make those decisions,” Hannity said.
“Okay,” Ingraham said, adding “who knew Hannity was such a diplomat?”
Reuters reported athletes competing in the Beijing Olympics were warned by speakers at a Human Rights Watch seminar not to speak out about human rights abuses while in China for their safety.
“There’s really not much protection that we believe is going to be afforded to athletes,” director general of the Global Athlete group Rob Koehler reportedly said. “Silence is complicity and that’s why we have concerns.”
“So we’re advising athletes not to speak up. We want them to compete and use their voice when they get home.”
Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqui Wang warned of China’s “vague” laws on “crimes that can be used to prosecute people’s free speech.”