Fox News host Tucker Carlson contended that U.S. leaders’ employment of the Chinese lockdown model of coronavirus response has allowed China to win in the end.
Opening Thursday night’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” with an almost 15-minute monologue that began with calling Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “shelter-in-place” order 63 days ago “the beginning of an unprecedented mass quarantine that has changed this country forever,” Carlson observed that the U.S. is now “hard to recognize compared to just two months ago.”
The Fox News host ominously explained his desire to “get on tape, for the record, some of what actually happened here” before social media platforms ban “uncomfortable facts” and only allow “one version of the story.”
“The first thing to remember is that our leaders didn’t simply revoke the country’s constitutional rights one day from a cold start. They laid the groundwork first. They softened opposition by sewing fear,” he began.
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“But they were totally wrong,” Carlson said after detailing the scary initial coronavirus death predictions, many given by unqualifed people, that had so many in a panic. “We now know, thanks to widespread blood testing, that the virus isn’t that deadly. An enormous percentage of coronavirus infections produce mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. They’re asymptomatic. The death toll is a tiny fraction of what we were told it would be.”
The Fox News host cited several studies that showed death ranges at or well below 1 percent, “far below what they told us it would be” before playing clips of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo demanding ventilators or “tens of thousands of Americans would die” and Dr. Anthony Fauci saying the Chinese government was being “transparent.”
As the views of “informed and independent-minded Americans who had real questions about the wisdom” of “following the Chinese” lockdown model “began to disappear from Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook,” Tucker argued, they were replaced by “hardened political activists like Zeke Emanuel” who were “allowed” to “pose as experts on the virus’ mitigation.”
When people tell us “we have no choice,” the Daily Caller founder opined after playing a clip of Emanuel calling for no “return to normalcy until find a vaccine or effective medications” you should “run,” because “we always have a choice.”
Other political leaders like Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, on the other hand, chose to “try a different approach,” despite condemnations and dire prognostications, and have seen solid results.
“What you almost never saw from these people was a straightforward conversion about whether it was actually working,” he said. “They didn’t want to talk about that.” (RELATED: ‘More Off Base Than Your Average Epidemiologist’: Tucker Cites Dr. Fauci’s ‘Buffoon Level’ Mistakes, Questions ‘Powerful’ Role)
Though there is still much to learn, Carlson cited a few things “you need to know.”
“There is, as of tonight, precisely no evidence as of right now that the lockdowns in America saved lives, anywhere. In this country. In fact, it’s possible mass quarantines killed people,” he said before quoting a recent report from JP Morgan showing that ending lockdowns was “associated with a slower spread of the virus.”
Next, the Daily Caller co-founder contrasted media reaction to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s light-handed response with that of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“The message of all of this of course was unmistakable: California was saving its people, while right-wing old South Dakota was plunging into a calamity,” he said. “That was more than five weeks ago. How did things turn out in the end? … As of today, about five per 100,000 people in South Dakota have died of thee coronavirus. In California, the death toll is 8.4 per hundred thousand. That’s 64 percent higher.”
“Bad economies don’t just make people poorer, they end lives,” the Fox News host said after pointing out the media’s condemnation of President Donald Trump for saying early on in the pandemic that a bad economy can kill people.
“For fifty years, America has steadily shipped its manufacturing jobs abroad,” Carlson concluded. “In the age of coronavirus, tens of millions of service jobs have gone away. Many will not return. So only manufacturing is left, but here’s the catch – the manufacturers are all in China now. In other words, China won. So no matter what they tell you in coming years, that’s what happened. That’s what actually happened. Remember it.”