A veteran host at a Pennsylvania rock radio station has quit after management ordered him not to criticize President Donald Trump on the air.
"I really hated to quit my very fun and honest show, but under these rules, I could not continue being honest to my fans and listeners," Bruce Bond, formerly of WTPA-FM in Palmyra, wrote on his Facebook page.
"I'm sorry that there is this really ugly political environment in this country with the current president. Unfortunately, Central PA can't handle someone as liberal and brutally honest as I can be quite often."
Bond's departure from the station — which bills itself as "The Rock of Central PA" and plays artists like The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Santana, KISS, Queen and Aerosmith — came after he received a terse memo from vice president and general manager Tim Michaels.
"This is to serve as notice that it is not permissible on WTPA airwaves to talk disrespectfully of the president. I have received backlash in the form of emails, phone calls and such. I have listeners threatening a boycott of sponsors and social media campaigns against the station," Michaels wrote in the memo, which Bond posted on Facebook.
"I have spoken with several parties personally this week that are very angered and have discontinued listening to WTPA and are encouraging their friends to do the same. This cannot continue to happen. I asked previously to cease political discussion. If this cannot be achieved we will have no choice but to discontinue the show."
Bond told the Philly.com his bosses never beefed when he spoke about President Barack Obama on the air. But things changed last year, he said, when Trump became the GOP presidential nominee.
"They've warned me a couple times about speaking against Trump, which I just ignored. But this last time, I decided to take a stand and walk away. I didn't want to have to walk on eggshells every time Trump comes up," he told the website.
WTPA-FM owner Pat Garrett has been an outspoken supporter of Trump and even recorded and released a song called "I'm Voting for Donald for President."
Bond's show, which ran every Saturday on 91.2 FM, was a break from the station's usual format of hard-driving rock and roll played by hosts like Lee Ann Taylor and Randy "Rock" Johnson.
As of Tuesday morning, Bond was still promoted on the station's website as "being one of the most talked about personalities in local radio."
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