Tucker Carlson delivered a particularly strange rant on his Fox News show on Friday, expressing concern for the plight of those Americans who are suffering economically during coronavrus lockdowns. But he didn’t blame Donald Trump and Senate Republicans for completely blowing the federal coronavirus response — instead he pointed the finger at Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose advice Trump and his fellow Republicans have regularly ignored.
Tucker spent much of his opening segment feigning sympathy for those who have been seriously economically impacted by the pandemic, and for young people who have been at higher risk of depression and suicide over the past few months.
“People are depressed, you see it all around you. They’re depressed because they’re cut off from one another. They’re depressed because their lives are moving backwards. According to data collected last month, 12 percent of American households in the richest country in the world are now routinely short on food. More than 20 percent of all renters in America are behind on payments. Keep in mind these data were collected before federal unemployment benefits expired,” Tucker said, without acknowledging that it was Senate Republicans who allowed those benefits to expire, and who never brought the HEROES act that the House passed in May to a vote.
But he kept going on about this topic nonetheless.
“Big parts of this country are becoming poorer. But you don’t hear about it much because to the media and our leaders in Washington, it’s not a very big deal. They can’t imagine worrying about money,” said Tucker, a millionaire whose stepmother is the heir to chicken empire Swanson Enterprises.
“In Washington they live in a city with guaranteed full employment always and forever, thanks to the federal government. And it affects their attitudes. Here’s Tony Fauci, the most political man in the most political city in America, telling you that going broke isn’t really a big deal.”
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” then pulled up a clip of Dr. Fauci saying: “I know it’s difficult but we’re having a lot of suffering, a lot of death. This is inconvenient from an economic and a personal standpoint, but we just have to do it.”
That Dr. Fauci comment is from April 2, or about four-and-a-half months ago, and just over two weeks after we started taking coronavirus seriously. While it’s normal practice for news shows like Tucker’s to put a date on archival clips like this, Fox News didn’t bother doing so this time. Leaving the date off the clip creates the perception that Dr. Fauci’s comment was recent and referred to present circumstances.
But that is not the case. Rather, that quote came during the early days of lockdowns, before the United States became home to far and away the worst outbreak of the virus of any country in the world. When Fauci made that comment, he was suggesting a federal lockdown order to hopefully end the pandemic quickly.
But Carlson nonetheless went off about Fauci once more, based only on that old quote, and without referencing anything he’d said recently.
“Remember when you respected that guy? Remember what he seemed like a legitimate public health expert?” Tucker whined, again implying that the comment he just aired was recent, instead of from nearly 5 months ago.
“We do. He was on the show. We treated him like a physician. Now it’s clear Fauci is just another oily politician on an ego trip, just like the rest of them. In case you haven’t been to a supermarket recently, Fauci is featured on the cover of InStyle magazine, photographed by the pool.
“Man of science. What a buffoon. But Fauci isn’t suffering during the lockdown, he’s a loving it. Tony Fauci’s enjoying the hell out of himself.”
You can watch the quoted portion of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in the video embedded in this article.
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