U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida’s 6th Congressional District took to the Fox Business Network Monday with sharp words for the Orlando Sentinel, a newspaper that endorsed him as a candidate but rescinded the nod last week.
“The first time you disagree with their orthodoxy, they go straight to ‘cancel culture’ and straight to personal attacks rather than debate the issues,” Waltz told host Charles Payne.
“There’s a journalistic culture now that cancels people who disagree [with them about] anything to do with the President. They just completely lose their minds.”
“Rather than reporting the facts, it’s just constant opinion. It’s dangerous for our country,” Waltz lamented, giving the Sentinel’s reversal new life for a second week.
“We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy,” the editorial board wrote, objecting to Waltz siding with Texas in a failed lawsuit championed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.
The matter was not heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, with all three Trump appointees denying hearing the case that would have challenged how four states that went for Joe Biden handled the tabulation of votes.
Waltz lamented the opinion essay as a “sad day for journalism,” a “typical clickbait piece that didn’t even do the basics of journalism,” and a “personal hit piece” that called him a coward and a danger to the Constitution.
“They can keep their endorsement,” Waltz said, noting that he’d won with 61% of the vote in November, a sign that district voters don’t care much about local paper endorsements. “Their credibility is tanking just like their readership.”
The Congressman offered similar complaints on Friday when the anti-endorsement first ran, also on cable news.
“The media is so in the bag for the other side that they’ve stopped reporting news,” Waltz said on the Fox News Channel in an appearance with Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Sentinel opinion editor Mike Lafferty was unmoved by Waltz’s protestations of cancellation.
“Yes, when a politician decides to join a lawsuit that threatens to destroy democratic elections in the United States, the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board will cancel our earlier support for him,” he tweeted Monday.
This article first appeared at Florida Politics.
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This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2020.