Conservative talk show host Dan Bongino has issued an ultimatum to the company that carries his show over its employee vaccine mandate.
Bongino on Monday told listeners and on social media that Cumulus Media can either rescind its mandate that employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 or he’ll quit.
“You can have me or you can have the [vaccine] mandate,” he tweeted. “But you can’t have both of us.”
The company reportedly gave employees until Sept. 27 to be fully vaccinated before returning to the office and wrote in a memo, “it would neither be fair nor do we have the bandwidth to make exceptions based on individual preferences.”
Some employees who can work remotely full-time are exempted, according to the Atlanta-Constitution Journal newspaper.
Bongino is vaccinated because he has Hodgkin’s lymphoma but says he’s protesting the mandate on behalf of other employees who don’t want to get vaccinated.
“I’m not really happy with the company I work with right here,” Bongino said on the radio Monday. “I believe these vaccine mandates are unethical. I believe they’re immoral. I believe they don’t take into account the science of natural immunity due to a prior infection.
“I believe they’re broad-based and don’t take into account an individuals’ circumstances of why they may or may not want to take a vaccine. And they’re antithetical to everything I believe in.”
Cumulus as of Monday evening had yet to comment on the matter.
It’s unclear whether Bongino has taken a position on vaccine requirements at the Fox News Channel, on which he hosts a weekend program.
“Cumulus is going to have to make a decision with me,” he also said Monday. “If they want to continue this partnership or they don’t. But I’m talking to you on their airwaves. They don’t have to let that happen. And I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t. Because it’s really unfortunate that people with a lower profile than me, who don’t have 300-plus stations, have been summarily either shown the door or been put in really untenable circumstances because they simply want to make a medical decision by themselves.”