Fox News’ Chris Wallace seemingly mocked senior political analyst Brit Hume’s analysis of President Joe Biden’s inauguration speech in a hot mic moment that was broadcast live on Wednesday.
Wallace and Hume were participating in a panel on Fox’s coverage of the inauguration when Hume was asked to give his take on the speech.
“To the extent that this speech could do it, [inaudible], he laid off any partisan stuff … I think this speech will be very well received,” Hume said. “I would point out a couple of things. The president did talk about what a crisis we’re in. We’ve got the crisis in the environment, and we’ve got the COVID crisis and all the rest of that.”
Hume went on to say that the situation the nation is facing with the pandemic is “more friendly to Biden than he might have imagined.” He noted that the numbers suggest things are getting worse, but then pointed to the vaccine as a solution.
The U.S. passed the 400,000 COVID-19 death toll mark on Tuesday with an average of over 200,000 new daily cases since December. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were approved for emergency use by the FDA in December. (RELATED: Jake Tapper Calls Coronavirus Vaccines An ‘Unmitigated Success’ For Trump Administration)
“That is what we’ve hoped for from the beginning. That there would be a vaccine. We never thought we’d have one as soon as now. We thought it would be way into next year, maybe beyond, before we got one,” Hume continued. “So that’s one big problem that is well on the way to solution that he faces. Look around the world. We’ve seen some kinda baby steps but important ones toward a new way–”
Hume’s mic abruptly cut out mid-sentence and Wallace can be heard at a low volume saying, “Really? 100,000 people dying?” before host Bret Baier jumped in to say that they were losing Hume’s audio. The context of Wallace’s hot mic question was not immediately clear.
The hosts didn’t acknowledge what Wallace said and continued with coverage of the inauguration ceremonies.