Courtesy: Fox NewsSean Hannity enjoys making waves on his radio and TV shows—but he's not out to sink anyone's livelihood.
After learning that the government-healthcare hotline operator he spoke to earlier in the week got fired for engaging him in conversation on the air, the Sean Hannity Show host was looking to make amends (and, if the shoe fit, highlight another possible problem with so-called Obamacare).
"They fired me from my job," Earline Davis, who took Hannity's call on Monday, revealed on his radio show Thursday, per Real Clear Politics.
After hearing her story, the Fox News veteran offered to pay her $26,000, which amounts to a year's salary for the mother of two.
"First of all, I'm very sorry that you had to go through that," Hannity told Davis yesterday. "Especially because you were really nice, you were very kind, you were very honest, and I don't want you to have to pay a price just for taking our phone call and their being punitive in some way, so I want to help you out here."
"That's a year's salary tax-free, so you don't have to pay taxes on that money," Hannity said. "Check with your accountant though, or check with your financial guy or whoever you talk to, whoever does your taxes, H&R [Block], whatever." (If he legally gifts her the money, she doesn't have to report it to the IRS as income.)
During their chat earlier in the week, Hannity had quizzed Davis about the various bugs plaguing the Obamacare website, Healthcare.gov, and asked her whether anybody seemed to like the new system.
"Um, no, not really," she replied.
After that, Davis explained to Hannity, she was escorted to an HR rep the following day, who informed her, per her account: "We can't have this type of stuff going on here, so we have to release you."
Asked if during training for the job, which she started Sept. 23, if she had ever been expressly told not to take a call from a radio show, David replied, "I did not hear anything about that. There were so many of us in a big group, you can only talk so loud."
Upon firing her, they just told her that she wasn't supposed to talk to "no type of media whatsoever," she said.
"Meaning, in other words, they didn't tell you before you were hired, they didn't tell you during your training, but then they told you after the fact that you aren't allowed to be on the media if somebody called in," Hannity said. "It's not your fault I called."
"I thank God for you and your crew and everybody that's listening," Davis told him appreciatively. "This is really a blessing, I wasn't expecting all of this."