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Fox News Stars Now Pretend They Never Said What They Said About the Coronavirus https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-stars-sean-hannity-and-jesse-watters-now-pretend-they-never-said-what-they-said-about-the-coronavirus?source=twitter&via=desktop via @thedailybeast
After spending weeks downplaying the deadly virus that now has nearly the entire U.S. under some form of lockdown, several Fox News stars are now attempting to gaslight viewers by claiming they sounded the alarms all along while it was actually the media and Dems who dismissed it
The network’s most-viewed primetime host Sean Hannity has recently devoted much airtime to insisting he has “always taken the coronavirus seriously,” despite no less than a month ago suggesting the pandemic might be a “deep state” plot to hurt the economy or - (cont)
(cont) - or or, at another point, Hannity claimed concerns over the coronavirus was a “new hoax” designed to “bludgeon” Trump.
Hannity suddenly changed his tune late last month on the virus after President Donald Trump finally pivoted to treating it seriously.
Hannity suddenly changed his tune late last month on the virus after President Donald Trump finally pivoted to treating it seriously.
Despite Hannity’s perceived confidence in his coronavirus coverage, video and audio recordings do exist. https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/sean-hannity-claims-people-are-faking-concern-about-coronavirus-bludgeon-trump-new
Comparing the novel virus to the seasonal flu, meanwhile, was a tactic Trump and his allies adopted for weeks on end to downplay the deadliness of COVID-19 and excuse the president’s slow response.
But that misleading comparison was thrown in Hannity’s face last month during an interview with top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci. Video here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/dr-anthony-fauci-schools-sean-hannity-on-dangers-of-coronavirus
Hannity has already issued a toothless threat to sue other news outlets for criticizing his coronavirus coverage. On Weds Hannity melted down over tech journalist Kara Swisher’s New York Times column blaming Fox News for her mother’s initial lack of concern over the virus.
But Hannity is not the only Fox News personality to pretend he never played a role in peddling the dismissive, often-misleading coronavirus talking points he is on-record as saying.
Jesse Watters—who made headlines early on for his dismissive, often-cavalier attitude towards the virus—took up the Hannity line of criticizing Democrats and the media for downplaying the pandemic.
While the Fox News host is now attempting to broadly paint Trump critics or the media as the real coronavirus downplayers, Watters is of course on-record as explicitly telling his viewers that the coronavirus was no big deal.
“If I get it, I'll beat it,” he said on March 3. “I’m not lying. It's called the power of positive thinking, and I think America needs to wake up to that.” He patted himself on the back for sitting next to an “Asian guy” on the subway and ordering “Chinese food.”
“I'm not afraid of the coronavirus, and no one else should be that afraid either,“ Watters declared. https://twitter.com/RiegerReport/status/1245465907129978881
In his March 14 monologue, Watters compared COVID-19 to the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic, which was highly contagious but had a low mortality rate of 0.02 percent. “Nearly 13,000 Americans died from swine flu,”
“So far, just a few dozen Americans have died from coronavirus. A few dozen versus 13,000. In one year. This isn’t downplaying, this is just context. Now doctors say things will get worse, but that’s how it stacks up to the last big health scare," Watters said.
According to a recent Pew Research poll, 79 percent of Fox’s viewers feel the media has exaggerated the risks.
