Tucker Carlson leaned into ant-vaxx rhetoric on his Fox News Tuesday night, saying that powerful people are “for certain” trying to deceive you about the COVID-19 vaccine.
But first, Tucker — who is not a credible source of news, according to a judge’s ruling — wanted you to know how much he doesn’t care about Trump’s second impeachment trial.
You’ve probably been glued to the tube all day. Donald Trump’s second impeachment proceeding started. We didn’t watch any of it,” Tucker declared. “We did hear from a number of people that Trump’s head lawyer didn’t do a very good job. On a slow day that might be a mildly interesting fact, but at this point, honestly, who cares?
“Impeachment? The whole thing is ridiculous, they are literally impeaching a president who isn’t even the president anymore. They’re yelling at someone who’s already left the room. It’s a farce, insulting and absurd. Anyone who tells you the details of today’s Potemkin impeachment are important is probably trying to distract you from something that actually is important.”
What does Tucker think is more important than Trump inciting an attempt to overthrow the government? Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, apparently.
“There are a lot of those things right now, more than ever. One of them is our ongoing COVID pandemic. After months of hearing that life could never return to normal until we get a vaccine, we’ve got a vaccine. Two vaccines, actually. But life did not return to normal. Life got worse,” Tucker complained, seemingly not understanding that most people have not been vaccinated yet.
Tucker’s inane rambling continued from there.
“We were instructed to take the new vaccine as soon as possible, and then to put on more masks. One mask was no longer enough. Anyone who complained about that was punished,” Tucker said, for some reason, before starting on his anti-vaccine spiel.
“Most people obeyed the orders. They had no choice. But the whole thing made them nervous. How could it not? Why exactly did the rules change all of a sudden, they wondered. Was there a good reason for that? When are we finally get a repeal corona law? And what about this vaccine?
“Why are Americans being discouraged from asking simple straightforward questions about it, questions like: How effective are these drugs? Are they safe? What’s the miscarriage risk for pregnant women, for example? Is there a study on that? May we see it? And by the way, how much are the drug companies making off this stuff?”
The concern about pregnant women taking the vaccine is based on a false story about a woman miscarrying after receiving the vaccine. In reality, the miscarriage occurred weeks before the woman, a nurse, got her first dose of the vaccine. The lie was spread by random other people, not the woman herself.
Tucker then attempted to give himself some cover on this front by acting like it’s perfectly normal for people to invent baseless concerns about the vaccine and spread them on social media.
“Well there’s nothing QAnon about questions like that. They’re not conspiracy theories,” Tucker said, falsely. “They’re the most basic questions. In a democracy, every citizen has a right to know the answer. But instead we got fluff and propaganda. The media rollout for the vaccine came off like a Diet Pepsi commercial at the Super Bowl: tons of celebrity endorsements, not a lot of science.
“It was totally disingenuous. And naturally it had the opposite of the intended effect. Most Americans already supported vaccines. They didn’t need to be brow-beaten in order to be convinced. They were grateful their kids no longer get tetanus and polio and chickenpox. They weren’t anti-vaxxers.”
Despite Tucker’s rhetoric here, clearly many people did need some convincing.
Tucker then tried to claim that authorities are “lying” about the vaccine. What exactly they’re supposedly lying about was not made clear at any point during his opening segment.
“And yet from the very first day, the way the authorities handled the COVID vaccine did not inspire confidence. If the vaccine was so great, why were all these people lying about it?” Tucker asked, vaguely.
“And they were lying, clearly they were lying. You know that for certain because from the moment the COVID vaccine arrived, the most powerful people in America worked to make certain that no one could criticize it.”
From there, Tucker spent the rest of his opening segment complaining about social media moderation targeting right-wing misinformation about the vaccine. He cited a New York Times story about 37 people developing a rare blood disorder from the vaccine as proof there should be more concern about the safety of the virus.
The concern is ironic, after Fox News hosts and guests alike have downplayed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic endlessly over the past year, citing the overwhelming survival rate among those who have contracted the virus. However, you are hundreds of times more likely to die of COVID-19 than to develop this blood disorder from the vaccine.
He also decided to complain about Melinda Gates pushing the vaccine.
“Melinda Gates is not a scientist. She did not develop this vaccine. She has no background in epidemiology or any relevant discipline.”
Tucker Carlson hold a bachelor’s degree in history from Trinity College, a tiny liberal arts school. He is not a scientist. He has no background in epidemiology or any relevant discipline.
You can watch the quoted portion of Tuesday’s episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News in the video embedded up at the top of this article.