How Right-Wing Pundits Are Covering Coronavirus
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
How Right-Wing Pundits Are Covering Coronavirus
Conservative media stars aren’t worried. Neither is President Trump.
By Jeremy W. Peters and Michael M. Grynbaum
March 11, 2020
Updated 8:35 p.m. ET
Sean Hannity used his syndicated talk-radio program on Wednesday to share a prediction he had found on Twitter about what is really happening with the coronavirus: It’s a “fraud” by the deep state to spread panic in the populace, manipulate the economy and suppress dissent.
“May be true,” Mr. Hannity declared to millions of listeners around the country.
As the coronavirus spreads around the globe, denial and disinformation about the risks are proliferating on media outlets popular with conservatives.
“This coronavirus?” Rush Limbaugh asked skeptically during his Wednesday program, suggesting it was all a plot hatched by the Chinese. “Nothing like wiping out the entire U.S. economy with a biothreat from China, is there?” he said.
The Fox Business anchor Trish Regan told viewers on Monday that the worry over coronavirus “is yet another attempt to impeach the president.”
Where doctors and scientists see a public health crisis, President Trump and his media allies see a political coup afoot.
Distorted realities and discarded facts are now such a part of everyday life that the way they shape events like impeachment, a mass shooting or a presidential address often goes unmentioned.
But when partisan news meets a pandemic, the information silos where people shelter themselves can become not just deluded but also dangerous, according to those who criticize conservative commentators for shedding any semblance of objectivity when it comes to covering the president.
“This sort of media spin poses a clear and present danger to public health,” said Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative host and author who published a book, “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” in 2018. “If you have people out there who feel all of this is overblown, and feel the need to act out their lack of concern by not taking precautions, it could be exceptionally dangerous.
“That’s not just a problem for the right wing, that becomes a real threat to the general population,” added Mr. Sykes, who is also a contributor to MSNBC. “When people start dying, the entertainment value wears off.”
In the case of Fox News viewers and talk radio listeners, who tend to be older than the general population, the danger of playing down the threat is potentially far worse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has specifically identified older people as being at higher risk from serious complications if they contract the virus. The typical Fox News viewer is in his or her mid-60s, similar to CNN and MSNBC.
Despite Mr. Hannity’s own skeptical commentary, his Tuesday show featured Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a guest. He told Mr. Hannity that he wanted to “make sure” viewers knew that the coronavirus “is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu — you got to make sure that people understand that.”
It was not difficult to see why Dr. Fauci would think Mr. Hannity’s roughly four million viewers — the biggest audience in cable news — might not understand. On Tuesday, the star anchor told his viewers, effectively, to relax.
“Sadly, these viruses pop up time to time,” Mr. Hannity said, with the certitude of a medical professional. “Pandemics happen, time to time.”
Mr. Limbaugh has offered clinical advice of his own. Recently he defended his widely criticized comparison of the coronavirus to the common cold and suggested the timing of the coverage of the outbreak raised “a gigantic series of question marks and red flags.”
And not all the prominent players in conservative opinion are denying the seriousness of the threat. Disagreement on the right has spilled into public view in a way that is unusual, given how swiftly dissent is often punished by Mr. Trump and his media loyalists.
“It’s a matter of public health. How can these shills face their followers after all the lies and deceit?” asked Michael Savage, the radio host and author who was one of Mr. Trump’s earliest supporters in conservative media and urged him to run for president in 2011.
“Are these mouthpieces without any social conscience?” added Mr. Savage, who called the words of Mr. Limbaugh and others “criminal negligence.”
Speaking on his Monday Fox News show, Tucker Carlson seemed to speak directly to skeptics like the president and Mr. Hannity, whose prime-time program follows his. “People you trust, people you probably voted for, have spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem,” Mr. Carlson said, adding: “People you know will get sick, some may die. This is real.”
Mr. Trump pays close attention to Mr. Carlson’s show, and the two are in regular contact by phone. Earlier this year, the anchor was credited with helping persuade the president to dial back his hawkish approach on Iran — and Mr. Carlson’s words on the virus this week were interpreted as a message aimed at the White House.
There are also signs that political views affect how seriously someone takes the public health risk posed by the virus.
A Reuters poll last week found that roughly four in 10 Democrats believed the coronavirus was an imminent threat — but only two in 10 Republicans felt the same way. And Americans who approve of the way the president is handling his job are far more likely to believe that the government can stop a nationwide epidemic from occurring than those who disapprove, the poll said.
Seventy-nine percent of those who gave Mr. Trump high job approval ratings said they were very or somewhat confident in the government’s ability to prevent the outbreak from becoming much worse, compared with only 39 percent of those who disapprove of him, according to a CNN poll conducted last week.
At times, there has been a jarring split screen between the president’s nonchalance and the sober warnings of the nation’s top health officials, who have been more aggressive about warning certain vulnerable populations not to travel.
Asked on Wednesday at the White House what he had to say to those concerned he is not taking the situation seriously enough, Mr. Trump offered a tart, terse reply: “Fake news,” the president snapped, before dismissing reporters from the room.
The fallout from the president’s handling of the crisis might have been more easily dismissed as liberal, anti-Trump paranoia if not for an improbable twist of events. A person infected with the coronavirus attended one of the conservative world’s biggest annual gatherings last week, the Conservative Political Action Conference, leading some politicians like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to voluntarily quarantine themselves.
Before this person’s status was made public — he was a V.I.P. attendee who purchased a $5,750 “gold” package that granted him access to backstage reception rooms where members of Congress and other high-profile figures mingled — conservatives at the conference were accusing the president’s enemies of inflating the seriousness of the outbreak.
The former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, speaking from the conference stage last Friday, insisted falsely that the media had only just started paying attention to the coronavirus after the impeachment trial ended. And the reason, he added, was “they think this is going to be what brings down the president.”
But over the next few days, CPAC’s organizers were pelted with questions from fellow conservatives, some of whom said they shook the infected guest’s hand, about why they had been left in the dark.
Suddenly the “hoax,” as Mr. Hannity and others have called the response to the virus, hit home.
Raheem Kassam, a former Breitbart News editor, was one of several conservative activists who attended CPAC and expressed frustration about how the group handled the incident. Mr. Kassam, who said he felt sick over the weekend and on social media chronicled his frustrated attempts to obtain a coronavirus test, knew that he might have been exposed only after someone who works in the office of a member of Congress who was also exposed contacted him.
“I think there’s a grown-up conversation to be had about what happened,” Mr. Kassam said in an interview, adding that he did not believe that some conservatives wanted to have that conversation now. “Imagine being that sick, and then finding out why I might be that sick in a thirdhand way. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was scared,” he added.
But the president’s allies have attacked Mr. Kassam, accusing him of sowing panic when there are no other known cases to come out of the conference.
Matt Schlapp, president of CPAC, who has sequestered himself at home because he also shook the infected attendee’s hand, appeared on Fox News in recent days to malign the media for exaggerating the threat.
And though he acknowledged in a subsequent interview that he had no medical training, he has made claims about the coronavirus and its apparent lack of contagiousness.
“It’s actually hard to get,” he said on Fox News on Wednesday, speaking via Skype from his home, where he still has a few days left in his self-imposed quarantine.
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In his speech to the nation tonight, Trump, who seemed to be in a trance, never mentioned testing people for the virus.
Typical breathing through the mouth at the appropriate times. No slurred words or incomplete thoughts. Eyes glazed.
Later on CNN John Kasich gave the POTUS props for not fucking it up and Don Lemon had a melt down on national TV while not letting Governor Kasich get a word in edgewise for a long time. If I were in Kasich's seat, I probably would have walked off.
Instead I turned it off. I'd rather watch Star Trek reruns.
I watched a bit of hannity and turned him off for sugar coating it as if 80% of us are safe with nothing to worry about.
I think Trump is in way over his head,
but Lemon was out of control, stupid, emotional and full of himself.
Totally fucking immaterial deflection.
Trump won an election, it's HIS problem.
Would you mothball all of the military plans for a full blown nuclear war
because it was implausible and hasn't happened since 1945?
I mean really Wally, you believe in evolution. I have read your knowledgeable comments on evolution.
You know that these germs and viruses mutate every sunrise.
You know that we have been creating germs and viruses that are immune to medicines like penicillin and
surface sanitizers like alcohol.
So if YOU were President how much would you invest in mutually assured nuclear destruction by our own
(humanity's) hands
or have ( keep the ) teams in place monitoring world health for the next black plague or Ebola outbreak
or the nth version of swine flu which is virtually guaranteed every damned flu season.
How would you spend those defense $$$ Wally?
They would NOT have eliminated the pandemic response team.
What would Gerald Ford have done? Or FDR...or Calvin Coolidge?
Or... how about Thomas Jefferson?
(And while we're attemptiong to derail the conversation by mentioning people who, unlike Trump...are not in office and don't have the power do do anything significant).
Actually, you got me wondering...what would Humphrey Bogart (Peace Be Upon Him!) do?
Or...Marx? What would Groucho do?
I had heard that trump had eliminated that... but wasn't sure. So I googled it:
Amid warnings from public health officials that a 2020 outbreak of a new coronavirus could soon become a pandemic involving the U.S., alarmed readers asked Snopes to verify a rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump had “fired the entire pandemic response team two years ago and then didn’t replace them.”
Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior.
Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior.
It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time. (cont'd)
Legum stated in a follow-up tweet that “Trump also cut funding for the CDC, forcing the CDC to cancel its efforts to help countries prevent infectious-disease threats from becoming epidemics in 39 of 49 countries in 2018.
The cuts could be especially problematic as COVID-19 continues to spread. Health officials are now warning the U.S. is unlikely to be spared, even though cases are minimal here so far.
“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country any more but a question of when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a press call [on Feb. 25].
Worst president and administration since our country's inception
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Nope, Crooked donnie is the WORST president this country has EVER had
Not by a long shot! Mr. President Peanut was and still is the worst ever closely followed by BHO
Um, nope, Crooked donnie is the worst of the worst of the worst in the history of this country
Well I guess I will chalk it up as you exercising your right to be wrong
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I guess i'll chalk it that you are just plain wrong.
He proves it every time he opens his mouth
He had his head in his ass and thought it was nothing, now stocks are in the toilet along with many people's livelihoods here in NYS.
Keep making excuses for the dumb fuck that occupies the whitehouse
All I can say is that back in the day, my drug dealer would have given me a much better 'cocktail' to have me prepped for that address than Trump's did.
Sensationalized "Names" with a Number Attached, really do "Cause" Panic !
My "Corona Virus" was no different than my other "Corona Viruses" over the years. I still "Blow My Nose" as much as I did in 1988 !
Buying your toilet paper from China, I see.
Another republican looney tunes idiot:
Comment from article I wanted to share - Falwell thinks the deadly virus was invented by Muslim Bolsheviks in Benghazi, who were hired by Obama and Hillary, who then imported it to the US and stored barrels of it in the basement of the same pizza place where they run their child porn ring. Subsequently they had black NFL players spread the virus all around the country.
During 'Fox & Friends' interview, Jerry Falwell Jr. suggests the coronavirus is a plot to hurt Trump and says Liberty University will continue to hold in-person classes
In the same segment, Falwell falsely claimed that the media is overhyping the threat of COVID-19 specifically to hurt Trump and suggested that the virus is a bioweapon concocted by North Korea.
"It's just strange to me how so many are overreacting. The H1N1 virus in 2009 killed 17,000 people, it was the flu also I think, and there was not the same level of hype. You just didn't see it on the news 24/7 and it makes you wonder if there's a political reason for that," Falwell said.
Falwell said that media coverage of the virus is a plot specifically to take out Trump, saying: "Impeachment didn't work, the Mueller report didn't work, article 25 didn't work, maybe this is their next attempt to get Trump."
Because, Mr Falwell, it is an influenza but many people get a flu shot every year. While the flu shot may not have prevented people from getting H1N1, it did probably lessen the severity of the disease. I bet if you go back and look at the 17,000 who died, most of them didn't get a flu shot or already had underlying conditions.
My point is....there is no vaccine for COVID-19. It is much more contagious and lethal than the flu. It's on the news 24/7 because people want to and need to be informed
As, it seems, the case is now. And this one, for the most part, leaves kids alone. That's one participation "trophy" they don't want
I'm 71 and have never had a flu shot nor will I ever poison my body with one. Holistic health using natural means is the way our bodies were designed.
I also have not had the flu in more than 35 years
Who cares?
Prayer is far better than trusting the medical community who kill 100s of thousands every year
And how many do they save from certain death? More than "100's of thousands".
In comparison? How many people have been cured of disease from prayer alone?
None.
Hannity is so deep in denial and deflection for Dear Leader he was even dragging 20 year old Bill Clinton stories up. Dude is flat out pathetic.