[Rightist Outrage] Tucker Was On Fox The Other Day, Said "If Vaccines Were Any Good, They'd Sell Themselves... Why Is The Gummint Tellin' Us What To Do?"

[Steve Bannon]

I'm sure he's telling the bitch who puts on his TV makeup and lipstick
that Trump was probably forced to get a shot, or maybe Biden's Deep State
folks came over and shoved a needle up his ass.

Evidently vaccines fucked up Fucker's brain as a child so he buys all his
cures from Alex Jones and Televangelist Jim Bakker.

He probably thinks that Trump is a batshit crazy fool for getting the jab.


Trump's minions are surrounding Tucker's cave as we speak, bearing
pitchforks and torches. Death threats from Trumplings are probably
overflowing his voicemail.


Who does that cocksucker think he is to criticize a Trump decision?
Disloyalty will not be tolerated. Someone needs to take that dildo out
of his butt so he can relax and sit up straight.


Has anybody talked to Q about this?


Don't forget to send me your money so we can build the wall. I was
pardoned by Donald Trump so there's no way I'll steal from anybody again,
at least this week.


Despite Outbreaks Among Unvaccinated, Fox News Hosts Smear Shots


Months after Rupert Murdoch got a Covid-19 vaccine dose, one of his
network’s stars, Tucker Carlson, called a Biden vaccination proposal “the
greatest scandal in my lifetime.”


Back in December, before the queen of England and the president-elect of
the United States had their turns, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch received
a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Afterward, he urged everyone else to get it,
too.

Since then, a different message has been a repeated refrain on the prime-
time shows hosted by Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham on Mr. Murdoch’s
Fox News Channel — a message at odds with the recommendations of health
experts, even as the virus’s Delta variant and other mutations fuel
outbreaks in areas where vaccination rates are below the national average.

Mr. Carlson, Ms. Ingraham and guests on their programs have said on the
air that the vaccines could be dangerous; that people are justified in
refusing them; and that public authorities have overstepped in their
attempts to deliver them.

Mr. Carlson and Ms. Ingraham last week criticized a plan by the Biden
administration to increase vaccinations by having health care workers and
volunteers go door to door to try to persuade the reluctant to get shots.

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“Going door-to-door?” Ms. Ingraham said. “This is creepy stuff.”

Mr. Carlson, the highest-rated Fox News host, with an average of 2.9
million viewers, said the Biden plan was an attempt to “force people to
take medicine they don’t want or need.” He called the initiative “the
greatest scandal in my lifetime, by far.”

Mr. Carlson’s guest on that episode, the veteran Fox News political
analyst Brit Hume, pushed back slightly, saying, “What they’re trying to
do is make it as easy as possible for people to get the vaccine and, for
people who are hesitant, to perhaps encourage them that they have nothing
to fear.” Mr. Hume was quick to add that “vaccines do have side effects”
and said those who are hesitant “should be respected.”

Opposition to vaccines was once relegated to the fringes of American
politics, and the rhetoric on Fox News has coincided with efforts by
right-wing extremists to bash vaccination efforts.

Served up to an audience that is more likely than the general population
to be wary of Covid vaccines, the remarks by Mr. Carlson and Ms. Ingraham
echoed a now-common conservative talking point — that the government-led
effort to raise vaccination rates amounted to a violation of civil
liberties and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

The comments by the Fox News hosts and their guests may have also helped
cement vaccine skepticism in the conservative mainstream, even as the
Biden administration’s campaign to inoculate the public is running into
resistance in many parts of the country.


Public health experts have said that a strong vaccination effort is
critical for the United States to outrun the virus, which has killed more
than four million people worldwide and continues to mutate.

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The amplification of vaccine skepticism through conservative media
channels could harden the reluctance of those who might otherwise have
been persuaded to get a shot, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a
communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“If you have constant exposure to an outlet that is raising vaccination
hesitancy, raising questions about vaccinations, that is something to
anchor you in your position that says, ‘I’m not going to take the
vaccine,’” Ms. Jamieson said.

A Fox News spokeswoman provided past statements by Mr. Carlson voicing his
general support for vaccines. “I’ve had a million vaccines in my life, as
we all have,” the host said on an April show. “I think vaccines are
great.” The spokeswoman also noted that Ms. Ingraham had spoken in favor
of adults choosing to receive vaccines if they wanted them.

White House officials said on Thursday that virtually all new coronavirus
hospitalizations and deaths nationwide involved unvaccinated people. The
five states with the worst outbreaks as of Wednesday had below-average
vaccination rates; four of them voted for President Donald J. Trump in the
2020 election.

Vaccine resistance was greater among Republicans than Democrats, according
to an April study by the Public Religion Research Institute. Among
Republicans who watch Fox News, 45 percent said they were hesitant or
unwilling to get a Covid-19 shot, compared with 68 percent of viewers who
watch the niche right-wing news channels Newsmax or One America News
Network.

On his Wednesday program, Mr. Carlson went after colleges that have
required students to be vaccinated before their return to campus.



“They shouldn’t get the shot,” said Mr. Carlson, who has not disclosed
whether he is vaccinated against Covid-19. “It’s not good for them.
There’s a risk involved, much higher than of Covid, but colleges are
forcing them anyway.”





His guest for the segment, Charlie Kirk, a founder of the conservative
group Turning Point USA, compared the campus precautions to “almost this
apartheid-style open-air hostage situation, like: ‘Oh, you can have your
freedom back if you get the jab.’”


Tucker Carlson, the top-rated Fox News host, has not disclosed whether he
has received a Covid-19 vaccine.Credit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Infections among younger people were a major factor in a surge last
summer. When students returned to colleges last fall, there was another
Covid spike. A new variant that spread rapidly in younger age groups
filled hospital wards this spring. Health experts have said for months
that Covid is far more dangerous than any potential risks associated with
a vaccine.

During Mr. Carlson’s surge in popularity, major companies, including
Disney, Papa John’s and Sandals, stopped buying ads on his show. In April,
the Anti-Defamation League called on the host to resign after he mocked
concerns about “white replacement theory,” which describes a racist
conspiracy theory popular among right-wing extremists, and accused
Democrats of “trying to replace the current electorate” with people he
described as “new people, more obedient voters, from the third world.”

The host has had the unshakable support of his bosses. In a May interview
with Insider, Lachlan Murdoch, the elder son of Rupert, who runs Fox News
with his father, defended Mr. Carlson against his critics and called him
“brave.”

As of July 4, 67 percent of American adults had received at least one
shot, just short of President Biden’s goal of 70 percent. Media campaigns
to increase vaccination rates, such as public service announcements from
the nonprofit Ad Council, have been addressed to hesitant Americans.

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While two of Fox News’s prominent hosts and their guests have questioned
vaccination efforts, the channel has also produced its own vaccine P.S.A.,
a 30-second spot featuring the hosts and anchors Steve Doocy, Harris
Faulkner, Dana Perino and John Roberts. “If you can, get the vaccine,” Ms.
Faulkner says in the ad.

Bret Baier, the chief political anchor of Fox News, said in an Instagram
post that he was “grateful” for the shot. In May, the hosts of “Fox &
Friends” spoke on-air of their “relief” at getting vaccinated. And Ms.
Faulkner hosted a prime-time special in February that sought in part to
“debunk common myths” about the vaccine.

The prime-time Fox News host Sean Hannity, who fell behind Mr. Carlson in
the ratings race during the Trump years, said on a May episode of
“Hannity” that he planned to get a Covid-19 shot. “I do believe in
science, and I believe in vaccinations,” he said.

“Talk to your doctor,” he continued. “You don’t need to talk to people on
TV and radio that aren’t doctors.”

Ms. Ingraham has been more skeptical. Last week she accused the news media
of overhyping the threat of Covid-19 to children and often refusing to
discuss adverse reactions linked to the vaccines, although such outcomes
have been covered by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and
other outlets.

“Despite everything the experts either got wrong or lied about, they still
think that parents should trust them and inject their kids with an
experimental drug to prevent a disease almost none of those kids will ever
get sick from,” she said on her show. Ms. Ingraham has not revealed
whether she has received a Covid vaccine.

While children are less likely to develop severe illness from Covid-19,
data from the American Academy of Pediatrics showed that more than four
million children had tested positive for the coronavirus since the
pandemic began, that more than 16,500 had been hospitalized and that more
than 300 had died in the United States.


Fox News is not the only outlet that has been critical of vaccine efforts.
Newsmax covered Mr. Biden’s outreach plan on its website with the headline
“Biden Blasted for ‘Sick’ Door-to-Door Vaccine Campaign”; One America News
Network greeted the proposal with the headline “Joe Biden To Send
Operatives To Harass Americans Into Taking COVID-19 Vaccines.”

Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins,
called the rhetoric against vaccine campaigns “a terrible development.”

“We have such strong political opinions in this country,” he said, “and if
people associate their political identity with a position on a public
intervention, it’s very hard to penetrate that with good information.”

The remarks against vaccination efforts on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and
“The Ingraham Angle” have come during a ratings resurgence for Fox News.

For years, Mr. Murdoch’s channel was the ratings leader among cable news
networks — only to fall behind CNN in the wake of the 2020 election, when
Fox News was the first news organization to project Mr. Biden as the
winner of Arizona, a key swing state.

Newsmax, which was more frankly pro-Trump in its coverage, gained viewers
in the weeks after Election Day. At the same time, One America News
accused Fox News of joining “the mainstream media” in an effort to recruit
the channel’s disaffected fans.

Now the old ratings order has been restored: Fox News finished far ahead
of its main rivals, CNN and MSNBC, with an average of nearly 2.2 million
viewers during prime time in the second quarter of 2021, according to
Nielsen.

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[Steve Bannon]