Fox News’ Tucker Carlson ripped Senate Intelligence chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) over a report that Burr used his knowledge of the looming coronavirus outbreak to dump $1.7 million in stock just before the market tanked, calling on him to provide an explanation or resign.
A ProPublica report Thursday said Burr made 33 separate transactions, selling a significant percentage of his stocks on Feb. 13 — weeks before the market crashed.
“He had inside information about what could happen to our country, which is now happening, but he didn’t warn the public,” Carlson said during his show Thursday night. “He didn’t give a primetime address. He didn’t go on television to sound the alarm.”
Carlson continued, “Maybe there is an honest explanation for what he did. If there is, he should share it with the rest of us immediately. Otherwise, he must resign from the senate and face prosecution for insider trading.”
“There is no greater moral crime than betraying your country in a time of crisis,” Carlson added. “And that appears to be what happened.”
On Thursday, Burr also came under fire after NPR reported on a secret recording of a Feb. 27 speech he have to a group of top donors painting a more alarming forecast of the coronavirus’ economic impact than his public comments about the issue.
“It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” Burr said in the recorded speech, warning about the likely closure of schools, the mobilization of the military and the strain on U.S. hospitals. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
But in a Feb. 7 Fox News op-ed, Burr and Sen. Lamar Alexander wrote, “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus.”
Watch the video above.