Leave it to Tomi Lahren to be upset about a paid hiatus. The former-ish contributor to Glenn Beck’s The Blaze is currently in employment limbo, having been “permanently banned” from vomiting ignorant race-baiting bullshit on the conservative multimedia platform late last month. She’s still collecting paychecks, however, and will continue to do so until her contract expires in September, according to her lawyers. But rather than taking this opportunity to sit down in her all-beige suburban McMansion and reflect on why her goodwill coffers are as empty as United Airlines’ at the moment, she decided to strategically prop up a folksy wooden American flag and MAGA hat and invite ABC News over for an interview.
In the interview—which aired on last night’s Nightline, a major television network news program seen by millions—Lahren bemoans her lack of a platform to express herself publicly, putting on her best “but I want it” face and asking The Blaze to “just let me go.” She adds, “It’s my job, it’s my life. Without that, I feel lost. When your outlet is taken away from you, when your catharsis is stripped from you, and you don’t understand why and you’re so disappointed and you’re so blindsided by it, it hurts.”
A little background: Lahren was suspended after inciting conservative ire over her pro-choice comments on The View, where she said, “You know what? I’m for limited government, so stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well.” Which is fine, except for the fact that Lahren has made a career out of disavowing the feminist movement that has fought to give her that freedom of self-determination. She doubles down on that particular bit of cognitive dissonance at the end of the Nightline interview, saying, “I don’t consider myself a feminist, but boy, I will not lay down and play dead, ever.”
The limited-government advocate is also getting the government involved by suing The Blaze for wrongful termination, to which the site replied Friday, “It is puzzling that an employee who remains under contract (and is still being paid) has sued us for being fired, especially when we continue to comply fully with the terms of our agreement with her.”
[via Jezebel, which, like The A.V. Club, is owned by Univision Communications.]