OAN Staffers ‘Embarrassed’ by Host’s Cringey MAGA Rap Video
‘BIZARRE’
This exclusive reporting appears in Confider, The Daily Beast’s free media newsletter. For more media scoops and exclusives, sign up here.
That cringe-inducing pro-Trump rap video starring multiple One America News hosts has left staffers at the little-watched cable outlet deeply embarrassed, multiple sources told Confider. MAGA rapper Forgiato Blow teamed up with the far-right conspiracy-laden channel’s top star Dan Ball for the “Real America” video, which featured Ball railing against Donald Trump’s latest indictment and stiffly dancing like an uncle at a wedding. Throughout the video, Blow interacts with other OAN personalities, including the channel’s 82-year-old owner, and runs through the newsroom while staff dramatically tear apart folders reading “Trump Indictment #4.” The video is guaranteed secondhand embarrassment for any viewers not fully living a MAGA alt-reality. And OAN employees seemed to realize that, as two people familiar with the matter told Confider that some staffers walked out prior to filming because they didn’t want to be a part of it. One OAN employee added that staffers generally did not know about the video shoot until the last minute and just went along with it. Much of the finger-pointing was aimed directly at Ball: “I need to leave OAN ASAP! I am sick and tired of Dan Ball’s antics, and so are so many others,” one current OAN anchor wrote to Confider. Other current and former staffers told Confider they are “officially taking OAN off my resume after watching this” or that they “can’t stop laughing” at the “bizarre” video. Ball wrote in a statement: “We’d like to thank all the American Patriots out there who downloaded the song ‘Real America’! Within the first 24 hours of the songs release we reached #11 on the Top 100 ITunes billboard charts in the Rap/Hip-Hop genre, all thanks to you! God Bless you.”