Fox News host Tucker Carlson questioned the wisdom of allowing medical professionals like Dr. Anthony Fauci to “run the country.”
During a Friday night “Tucker Carlson Tonight” monologue that began by describing what has become the “largest and most disruptive response to a national emergency in our lifetimes,” Carlson shifted his attention to the “chief” expert behind “crafting national policy” when it comes to COVID-19 response, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
An “impressive person” who “certainly has the credentials for the job,” Fauci nevertheless has been wrong plenty of times, especially about the current pandemic. As a key example, Carlson played a January 21 clip of Dr. Fauci saying coronavirus was “not a major threat” to the U.S. public.
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“To be clear, we’re not attacking Tony Fauci for getting it wrong on the coronavirus,” Carlson said after citing several other examples. “Most people did get it wrong, in and out of medicine.”
Yet, the Daily Caller co-founder noted: “Fewer than two months ago, Anthony Fauci told us not to worry about this epidemic. Now he’s demanding that the federal government quarantine the entire country.”
Carlson said that Fauci is now asking for “extreme measures” that could last many months until “there are no more coronavirus infections and no more deaths.”
“We can only guess at the social and economic destruction they might wreak, but it would be profound,” said the Fox News host before spending a few minutes deconstructing the efficacy of various models and predictions, some of which have been “terrible at best.”
“Here’s the problem with getting these numbers so horribly wrong,” said Carlson. “These numbers have driven massively disruptive government policy. Our entire national shutdown is based on the fear that coronavirus patients would overwhelm hospitals. And outside of parts of New York City, that has not happened.”
“More than ten million Americans have already lost their jobs. Imagine another year of this. That would be national suicide, and yet that’s what Anthony Fauci is suggesting, at least.”
Fauci is a “decent man” who “doesn’t want to hurt America,” Carlson contended, but he’s also “not an economist” or even “someone who fears being unemployed himself.” As such, he can look at things “through the narrow lens of his profession.” (RELATED: Tucker Questions Severity Of Shutdown Strategy: What If ‘We’d Adopted A More Conventional Response To This Epidemic?’)
After playing a clip of Dr. Fauci saying the shutdowns were “inconvenient from an economic and a personal standpoint,” Tucker concluded:
Ten million Americans out of work and staring at poverty. That is not quote ‘inconvenient,’ as you just heard Dr. Fauci put it. It’s horrifying. It’s a far bigger disaster than the virus itself, by any measure. Tony Fauci, decent as he may be, can’t see that, because he doesn’t think it’s his job to see it. But even a doctor should be able to think beyond the models. Our response to coronavirus could turn this into a far poorer nation. Poor countries are unhealthy countries, always and everywhere. In poor countries, people die of treatable diseases. In poor countries, people are far more vulnerable to obscure viruses, like the one we are fighting now. You want to keep Americans from dying before their time? Then don’t impoverish them. For all his credentials, experience and apparent decency, Dr. Anthony Fauci doesn’t seem to understand any of this, and we should never let someone like that run this country.
