MSNBC host Chris Hayes took Fox News hosts to task Tuesday night for raging against vaccine mandates even as their own employer has implemented a strict vaccination policy, declaring that the rival network’s talkers lack the “courage” to call out Fox on the air.
Hayes blasted Fox stars such as Tucker Carlson for “selling this poison because it’s profitable for them,” adding that “they truly do not care” about the damage their rhetoric is causing because “it’s great for ratings.”
As The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday, the Republican Party is currently raising money off of the Biden administration’s “authoritarian” requirements that vaccinations or weekly COVID tests are required for federal employees and businesses with more than 100 workers. “You MUST step up RIGHT NOW and fund our efforts against Biden to end this EVIL vaccine mandate or all will be lost,” read one RNC fundraising email.
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Just as former President Donald Trump and the GOP are stoking anti-vax fear to raise stacks of cash, Fox News has found that TV segments doing the same are great for business. One current Fox employee, for instance, told The Daily Beast that not much gets “our viewers more excited or engaged than” segments blasting vaccine requirements.
Citing the Beast’s reporting at the top of Tuesday’s broadcast of All In, Hayes said he was “sure it’s true” that Fox is leaning into anti-mandate rhetoric because it draws ratings, even if it’s “getting viewers killed.” (The United States’ current COVID-19 daily death rate of roughly 2,000 is overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated.)
Noting that Fox News mandates every employee provide their vaccination status and the parent company recently bragged that more than 90 percent of full-time staffers are vaccinated, Hayes mockingly declared: “Oh, my god, that’s a private decision! How dare they?!”
After pointing out that Fox also requires unvaccinated employees to submit to daily COVID-19 testing, which is more onerous than the Biden mandates, the MSNBC star sarcastically wondered aloud why Fox stars—who’ve called the mandates “tyranny”— weren’t slamming their own network.
“Notice, by the way, they don’t call out their own employer,” he knowingly said. “They could if they had any courage. If you think it’s tyranny, you could do that on-air, but you won’t!”
Saying that he’s “willing to bet you nearly all the people who go on air every night and rail against it are vaccinated,” the MSNBC host asserted that they are instead “selling this poison because it is profitable for them.”
He added: “And they truly do not care. I don’t know what’s in their hearts but their revealed preferences—I can only judge by their actions—they do not seem to care if people who watch them get killed as a result.”
“And yes, there are actual human beings taking last breaths with plastic tubes down their throat saying goodbye to loved ones over an iPad,” Hayes furiously concluded. “Entire universes of memories and life experiences snuffed out forever but, guess what, it’s great for ratings!”
