Far-right podcast host Douglas Kuzma—who was an outspoken critic of the COVID-19 vaccine—has died while battling the coronavirus, which he contracted after attending a QAnon-friendly gathering in Texas that right-wingers baselessly claimed was the victim of an anthrax attack.
“I really loved him and I would do anything for him,” Amanda Kuzma told The Daily Beast on Thursday morning while confirming her father’s death earlier this week. “He was a great father.”
Kuzma, who hosted a program on the far-right “Frog News Network” and called his listeners “froganites,” had come down with COVID-19 after attending the right-wing “ReAwaken America Tour” gathering held in Texas in mid-December. Friends of Kuzma told The Daily Beast that Kuzma had fallen ill following the event and was later admitted to the hospital, causing many of his loyal allies to lose touch with him.
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The news initially kicked off with pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood posting to Telegram in later December that Kuzma had “taken a turn for the worse” as his lungs aren’t responding to treatment. “Doug is suffering from Covid after returning from a recent patriot conference. Anna [a friend of Kuzma] informs me that Doug has taken a turn for the worse,” Wood wrote. “His lungs are not responding to treatment.”
Tim Greer, a fellow right-wing podcaster and good friend of Kuzma’s, told The Daily Beast in late December that his longtime pal tested positive for COVID-19 after attending Clay Clark’s right-wing event. The same conference was recently rife with right-wing rumors over the accusation that Clark had pumped anthrax through fog machines.
“Well, he didn’t have it before he went there, let’s say that,” Greer said.
Kuzma’s fellow right-wing radio host further told The Daily Beast that the Frog News Network radio host had been hospitalized. “Well, he [Kuzma] was tested positive for COVID, so COVID is what it is,” Greer told The Daily Beast while tossing cold water on the rumors that he might be sick due to anthrax poisoning. (Amanda Kuzma confirmed to The Daily Beast on Thursday morning, that her father had been admitted to the hospital before his death.)
“I do know he’s not responding on the telephone for the past three days,” Greer told The Daily Beast back at the end of December.
Clark, ReAwaken America Tour’s lead organizer, and his assistant didn’t respond to multiple request from The Daily Beast.
In a series of Telegram messages posted to Frog News Network’s channel on Christmas Day, a channel administrator claimed that Kuzma was in desperate need of prayers and had been sedated on a ventilator.
Rumors had begun circulating after the ReAwaken America Tour event around a baseless theory that attendees were victims of a “bioweapons” attack stemming from anthrax being pumped through fog machines—not the deadly virus that has been sweeping the globe for the last 18 months.
Clark has denied the anthrax rumors and insisted in an interview with The Daily Beast: “There was not anthrax through the fog machines!”
