Mod: As much as I like the title to today's post, it could be easily shortened to: "They lied."
Fox News Stars Now Pretend They Never Said What They Said About the Coronavirus (
The Daily Beast link): After spending weeks downplaying the deadly virus that now has nearly the entire
U.S. under some form of lockdown, severa
l Fox News stars are now attempting to gaslight viewers by claiming they sounded the alarms over the coronavirus all along while it was actually the media and
Democrats 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, at another point, claiming concerns over the novel virus was a “
new hoax” designed to “
bludgeon”
Trump.
Like many of his
Fox colleagues,
Hannity suddenly changed his tune late last month on the virus after
President Donald Trump finally pivoted to treating it seriously. The
Fox star and unofficial
Trump adviser has since taken aim at
Democrats and critics who have rightly called out his previous coverage, claiming that all along he was the one warning of the coming disaster while they were the ones turning a blind eye.
But despite
Hannity’s perceived confidence in his coronavirus coverage, video and audio recordings do exist. The
Fox star spent weeks misleadingly comparing the deadly virus to the seasonal flu while claiming
Democrats were “
politicizing and actually weaponizing an infectious disease” to “
bludgeon”
Trump. (Those comments throughout February and March that
Democrats were nearly identical to those infamously made by now-former
Fox Business host
Trish Regan, who, on March 9, with an on-air graphic blaring “
Coronavirus Impeachment Scam,” insisted the outbreak was “
another attempt to impeach”
Trump and “
demonize and destroy the president.” Weeks later,
Regan was let go by
Fox.)
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.
A Poll That Will Send Shock Waves Thru the White House (
Political Wirelink):Although
Trump received an early approval bounce in the polls — mostly due to the “
rally effect” that occurs in the early stages of a national crisis — that bounce is fading quickly.
Here are some striking new numbers from the
Navigator tracking poll:
Trump’s approval rate for handling the coronavirus down 12 points in the last week, from +10 (52% to 42%) to -2 (47% to 49%).
A majority of
Americans— 51% — say
Trump isn’t doing enough right now, up 10 points (from 41%) since last week.
Americans increasingly see
Trump as dishonest about the pandemic: 12-point swing in honesty since early last week, from +1 (45% to 44%) to -11 (42% to 54%).
61% of
Americans— including a third of
Republicans— describe
Trump’s response to coronavirus as “
unprepared.”
But here’s the finding that should send shock waves through the
White House: 40% of those who voted for
Trump in 2016 now say he didn’t take coronavirus seriously enough early on, up a whopping 17 points in the last week.
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