Fox News contributor Johnny “Joey” Jones reacted to President Joe Biden’s COVID diagnosis on Thursday by saying it could be “karma” over the president’s recent claim that he had cancer.
“You don’t want to fool with that. You don’t want to put into the universe something like that,” Jones added while co-hosting Fox News roundtable show Outnumbered.
The White House announced on Thursday morning that Biden was experiencing “very mild symptoms” after testing positive for the virus. While the president has been fully vaccinated and double boosted, he also is 79 years old and has a history of brain aneurysms and heart disease, placing him at some risk. He was prescribed Paxlovid, an anti-viral medication approved for treating COVID-19.
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At the same time, the president has attempted to reassure the public that he is fine and should make a speedy recovery. After the White House noted that he would work remotely while recovering, the president shared a photo of himself at a desk with the caption: “Folks, I’m doing great.”
With much of the Outnumbered panel having suffered a bout of COVID themselves, their conversation on Thursday centered on their own experiences with the illness and how it has become less severe thanks to vaccines and therapeutics.
Jones, serving as the lone male host of the female-centric program, insisted that “there is no better time in the world to be sick than right now,” adding that the president has all the resources available to him at the White House. He also personally recalled his previous two bouts with the virus, noting that the second time he was sick it felt like a “cold.”
The Fox News pundit went on to say “I hope and pray that is what the president experiences” before pivoting to connect Biden’s COVID to comments he made the day prior.
“I think life comes at you fast! I think when you’re pretending you had cancer one day and you’ve got COVID the next, you might want to recalibrate how you treat things and how you talk,” Jones declared before backpedaling a bit: “But, you know, I don’t wish bad luck on him and I’m not going to say that’s the reason why, just that maybe it’s a good opportunity for him to have a reality check.”
During a speech on Wednesday, Biden appeared to claim he currently had cancer when discussing the health impacts of emissions from oil refineries. The White House later clarified that Biden wasn’t announcing he was diagnosed with cancer but was instead referring to the fact he had non-melanoma skin cancers removed before he became president.
“I get so frustrated with these politicians that think they have to connect themselves to every dire thing that happens in Americans’ lives,” Jones continued. “I think President Biden, his little statement on cancer, is proof that politicians have taken that too far.”
Adding that he hopes the president quickly recovers, Jones then concluded by suggesting it could all be karmic justice.
“Because saying he had cancer the way he did, and backtracking it the way they did, that’s karma, man!” Jones exclaimed. “You don’t want to fool with that. You don’t want to put into the universe something like that.”
The Fox News commentator wasn’t the only conservative media figure to make some eyebrow-raising claims about the president’s diagnosis. Obviously aware that his network’s audience is overtly anti-mask and anti-vaccine, Newsmax political analyst Mark Halperin tried to thread the needle in a pretzel-twisting fashion.
“Even though a lot of people who watch this network are not pro-mask, why didn’t the president wear a mask on this trip?” the disgraced pundit asked with a straight face.
