During an interview with a hospital administrator who has expressed regret for not pushing COVID-19 vaccines harder as the Delta variant continues to run rampant, CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota directly accused Fox News’ Tucker Carlson of telling his viewers not to trust the vaccine while at the same time refusing to say whether he has been inoculated against the disease.
“Yes, you have a megaphone but not as big as the megaphone of some of the Fox prime time hosts,” Camerota, who worked at Fox News before joining CNN, said before playing a clip of Carlson suggesting that the vaccine “doesn’t work.” She asked her guest, “How do you fight that?”
“There are people that are trying to make political or financial gain,” CoxHealth CEO Steve Edwards replied. “I suspect that many of those people that undermine the vaccine are probably vaccinated themselves. They know better. They’re playing on people for financial gain, I suspect. It breaks my heart.” When patients tell him they don’t want the vaccine, he added, “It’s as if they are quoting Tucker Carlson themselves.”
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From there, Camerota pointed out that Carlson has refused to tell his viewers whether or not he has been vaccinated, despite the fact that Fox News has implemented its own version of a vaccine passport.
Asked directly in an interview last week if he has been vaccinated, Carlson dodged the question, saying, “Because I’m a polite person, I’m not going to ask you any super vulgar personal questions like that.”
“There is a feeling that he’s being secretive about it for some reason,” she said. “Again, these are folks, at least at Fox, who have a lot of accessibility to the vaccine, who are not crazy, who want to live, who want to protect their families and it stands to reason they are vaccinated but not telling their viewers that.”
After Sean Hannity urged viewers to take COVID-19 seriously and get vaccinated earlier this week, Tucker Carlson and his guest accused him, albeit indirectly, of “virtue signaling.” The following night, Hannity walked back his unexpectedly responsible commentary, telling his viewers, “I never told anyone to get a vaccine.”
