Before Fox & Friends was inane prattle that dictated national policy, it was just inane prattle. Just your normal morning show fluff infused with a little “real Murica” propaganda.
In 2015, one of their hosts, Pete Hegseth, did a bit where he tried to throw an ax at a target. You know, because women throw knives, but “real men” throw axes or some nonsense.
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Maybe these are the kind of patriot games you go in for, but the whole entertainment loses its luster when a military drummer gets winged by an ax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeiMvKuXs0E
Yeah, Hegseth overshot the target and hit a West Point drummer with the ax.
Now, there’s a lawsuit. From The Hill:
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Jeff Prosperie, who was struck by the ax thrown by Hegseth during a segment on the show, alleges that the co-host “negligently attempted to throw an axe at a ‘target’” and that the target was “negligently placed in an area” that put individuals “in the path of peril.”…
The lawsuit, filed in the New York Supreme Court on Tuesday [by Sobo & Sobo], alleges that the defendants in the case, which include Hegseth, Fox News and “Fox & Friends,” were “negligent, wanton, reckless and careless” in setting up the ax-tossing event and that it put pedestrians and others in danger.
The complaint also states that Hegseth was negligent in his throwing of the ax, claiming he did so “without proper training and in failure to properly look for pedestrians while performing a dangerous act in public.”
Look, I’m happy for anything bad to happen for Fox & Friends, but aren’t military drummers, like, I don’t know, trained to drum under a hail of gunfire? If you can’t take an ax to the arm and keep the beat, maybe you need to drum for one of the Defeat-o-crats schools, like Oberlin, instead of West Point.
In related news, Hegseth was reportedly on the short-list to be the new administrator for Veteran Affairs. It makes total sense to me that Trump people don’t know the difference between wounding warriors and caring for them.
UPDATE: Fox News has issued the following statement in regards to the incident:
The incident involving Jeff Prosperie from 2015 was unfortunate and completely unintentional. FOX News immediately apologized to Prosperie and offered medical assistance, which he declined saying he was ‘okay.’ The network also offered compensation, which he declined as well. We have not heard from Prosperie since 2015, so the lawsuit is surprising and we are reviewing it.
Man sues ‘Fox & Friends’ host after being struck by ax on set [The Hill]
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.