Even though Donald Trump regularly ignored CDC guidelines regarding masks and social distancing, and now he’s in the hospital with COVID-19, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Friday it’s “pretty weird” that Trump has only just been infected given how Trump has been out and about so often — suggesting, without evidence, that there could be some kind of conspiracy to infect Trump with the coronavirus.
Despite expressing that sentiment three times during a conversation with Donald Trump Jr. on his show Friday night, Carlson insisted he’s “not a conspiracy guy.” Don Jr. did not engage with Tucker’s line of thought.
“So this has been floating around on a pretty wide scale since March, and your dad has been pretty much out there since March,” Tucker said. “He hasn’t been hiding anywhere. He’s been talking to people, a lot of people, and doing a lot of big rallies. Here he gets it a month before the election. It’s a little weird. How did he get it, to you think?”
The president’s eldest son — whose girlfriend, ex-Fox News star Kimberly Guilfoyle, was diagnosed earlier in August — said it’s a mystery how the coronavirus could have struck anyone in the White House.
“I don’t know. The reality is, you know, the protocols around my father are pretty amazing. Like, you know, Kimberly got it earlier this summer, and the only reason we knew she actually had it was because we were getting in proximity to him,” Don Jr. said, referring to the White House testing regimen.
“So literally anyone who’s in that close proximity is tested each and every day,” he said. “So you know if he can get it probably anyone can, for better or worse. But I know they took really extensive protocols and it didn’t seem to matter, so I’m not sure where that would have come from, or who.”
But as Carlson’s chat with Don Jr. drew to a close, the host once again tried to imply some kind of conspiracy was afoot.
“The timing of all this is very, very very — I’m sure, you know, nothing to it but it’s pretty weird,” Carlson said.
Don Jr., grinning, sidestepped the comment: “I’m not gonna get conspiratorial on that one.”
Carlson did push it one last time before ending the chat: “I’m not it’s not a conspiracy guy in the slightest, just noting it’s a little strange.”
You can watch the relevant portion of Friday’s episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in the video embedded in this article.