Fox News host Tucker Carlson poked fun at CNBC and former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith for running a segment about customers and employees going into a Naples, Florida store without face masks.
Smith’s “The News With Shepard Smith” this week included footage inside Oakes Farms Seed to Table Market that the CNBC anchor said looked “like pre-pandemic.” A Wednesday tweet from the show’s Twitter account called the scene “shocking.”
WATCH: This shocking video from @SamBrockNBC shows a market in Naples, FL where many customers and employees are not wearing face masks.
Florida does not have a mask mandate, but the CDC has said that wearing masks can help control the Covid pandemic. https://t.co/WFatRrjnYa pic.twitter.com/IMQJz4p0Ox
— The News with Shepard Smith (@thenewsoncnbc) February 4, 2021
Jokingly describing Smith as a “genuine investigative journalist,” Carlson called the clip the “story of a lifetime” during a Thursday night segment on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
WATCH:
“This was the scene, a woman smiled in a grocery store,” Carlson quipped. “Actually, it wasn’t quite what we thought it was. We believed the hype, I guess. Maybe when you spend 30 years reading scripts about car chases everything seems like a car chase. The problem is not everything is a car chase. Sometimes it’s just people just smiling at each other in a grocery store. Sorry, overheated news guy. That’s not actually, uh, news.”
The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have long supported face masks as a way to curb the spread of COVID-19, and a mask mandate is currently in place in Collier County, where Naples is located.
However, the Naples store owner Alfie Oakes is an outspoken opponent of face mask use and placed a sign in front of his store stating that those with medical conditions are “exempt” from the order, NBC reported.
“Those in our lovely government have ordered all persons entering indoor facilities to wear a mask,” the sign reportedly reads. “If you have a medical condition that prevents you from wearing a mask, you are exempt from this order. Due to HIPAA and the 4th Amendment we cannot legally ask you about your medical condition. Therefore, if we see you without a mask, we will assume you have a medical condition and we will welcome you inside to support our business.” (RELATED: New York Democratic Leaders Caught Maskless At Private Party Despite COVID Restrictions)
After a decades-long career with Fox News, Smith left in October 2019. He launched his CNBC news-centered show in September 2020.