Tuesday, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson sounded off on the media’s consternation with President Donald Trump’s recovery and subsequent actions following his COVID-19 diagnosis.
Carlson questioned the standard applied to Trump in the wake of his illness and noted how some Democrats have not lived up to their own professed standard, especially regarding masks.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: Donald Trump got the coronavirus last week. On Saturday, some of his aides suggested in the background that he could die from it. The media happily seconded that diagnosis.
Trump, they informed us has a condition known as clinical obesity — obesity, whatever.
It sounds significantly worse than cancer and far more unattractive. So for a time, it looked like curtains for Big Orange; and then an amazing reversal, Trump strode out of the hospital thumbs in the air back from the grave tweeting like a savage.
Today, he was at his desk in the White House. New Yorker subscribers may never get over the shock of it all. To add to their pain and confusion and bewilderment, Donald Trump released this video last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I learned so much about coronavirus, and one thing that’s for certain, don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it.
You’re going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment. We have the best medicines.
Don’t let it dominate. Don’t let it take over your lives. Don’t let that happen. We are the greatest country in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “Feeling really good,” the President tweeted later. “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed under the Trump administration some really great drugs and knowledge,” end quote.
Well, it was self-promotional, of course, but honestly, it’s hard to think of a better or more positive message. Take Trump out of it. Yes, the coronavirus is obviously deadly. It has killed hundreds of thousands of people in this country, most of them are old and sick.
But the President himself is old, not to mention clinically obese, whatever that is, and yet, he survived. He appears to be in a great mood as people who cheat death often are. Of course, he received great medical care. He is the President.
But there was no magic involved in the treatment he received. Every drug Donald Trump took is available to the rest of us if and when we get sick. And that ought to gives us hope. Trump survived, so can we.
It doesn’t mean we should ignore the coronavirus or behave recklessly, obviously. But it does suggest we don’t have to live in a permanent state of terror. “Don’t let it dominate your life,” Trump said. That’s advice you’d give your own children.
But for the people whose power derives from our fear, it was a threat. They need you to be afraid, perpetually, otherwise you won’t obey them.
So of course, they were enraged by what Trump said. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLAIRE MCCASKILL, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Of course, you should be afraid of COVID, and how disrespectful that is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now we see this tweet, which is heartless.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it control your life. You don’t have to let it control your life, man, because you live in the White House.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It is insulting to every American who wears a mask, who has been laid off as a result of COVID.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Everyone should be afraid of COVID. Look at what it has already done.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I am flabbergasted by that and honestly, I cannot stop thinking about it.
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Donald Trump is telling you don’t be afraid of the deadly coronavirus. No one on Earth has done more to spread the Coronavirus than Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: You following this? Encouraging hope in your country is now, quote, “heartless.” Staying cheerful is an insult to the rest of us. Our leaders have an obligation to confirm our most irrational fears. That’s what compassion looks like. That’s what they’re telling us. It’s deranged.
But it’s also recognizable. It reminds you of the many ghouls in Washington who forced our military to wage pointless wars around the Middle East, but when you point out how destructive all of that has been, they whip around and accuse you of insulting the memory of our soldiers. That is the thousands of unfortunate young Americans who have died in their pointless wars.
How do you respond to an attack like that? It’s almost too irrational to rebut. That’s why they use it. And that’s why they’re using the same strategy here.
They wreck our economy with lockdowns. They keep our children stunted and ignorant by shutting down their schools. They drive our entire country to the brink of madness with politically motivated hysteria. But if you dare to say a word about it, if you dare to complain in any way, you are the monster. In fact, you’re a killer.
Watch this blow-dried cable news wonder lose control of himself, because somebody in the CNN control room played video of Donald Trump taking off his mask.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And the President in that Sunset Boulevard gesture, whipped his mask off in front of the American people on the nightly news last night.
So, as a doctor whose job it is — you know, to take it off. Please don’t even put it on the screen. Please take it off because that’s going to kill people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Take it off. Don’t even put it on the screen. He whipped his mask off in front of the American people. He dropped his mask. It’s like pornography.
Actually, it’s worse than pornography. Pornography is fine. That’s on Twitter. Pornographers are loyal donors to the Democratic Party. They’re virtuous.
This is a deeper crime than that. Taking your mask off effectively is questioning corona theology, and anyone who does that has committed an act of spiritual obscenity.
Watch MSNBC warn its viewers to hide their children before they play video of Donald Trump talking about the virus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O’DONNELL: It is a video of a very sick man with very sick ideas.
I’m going to show you another deeply perverse statement that Donald Trump made tonight on that video and I will let him say it in his own words with his own voice, you will hear that, but with the appropriate warning.
Viewers should know that what you’re about to hear is utterly insane and dangerous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Utterly insane and dangerous. Oh, that’s spine-tingling. If Kim Jong-il somehow made it with Dracula, their demonic spawn, the leering blood-slurping Incubus they created would still be less awful, less harmful to this nation than a video of Donald Trump assuring you that everything is going to be okay in the end. According to MSNBC, that’s how bad it was.
OK, so this is what peak hysteria must look like. Cable news can’t possibly get more overheated than that, you must be thinking. Oh, no. Oh, yes, it can. And CNN tried hard last night to top it.
Now, unfortunately, they are at something of a disadvantage. Their anchors aren’t quite as articulate as the guys from MSNBC. The anchor you just saw went to Harvard, the CNN anchor had to settle for Yale and only because his dad was the Governor. So he doesn’t have quite as many words to choose from when he wants to express his total outrage. Instead, he works blue and the naughty language lets you know just how mad he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: There he is. Hair blown, majestically, reshooting the scene for his own ad. I hold rallies and I tell you to ignore masks and I rip mine off as I vanquish the virus because I am a leader. Fear not COVID. What a bunch of bull [bleep].
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Whoa, naughty. That word wasn’t in the prompter or anything. It just came out totally unscripted.
Once Chris Cuomo saw Donald Trump outdoors without a mask, he just lost it. He honestly couldn’t believe a President would do something that obscene. Infected with COVID, yet breathing the very air that circulates in our common atmosphere and in the process killing millions.
Standing on the White House balcony, Trump was a human bioweapon, a WMD. It was immoral. And Chris Cuomo would know precisely how immoral it was, because he has done it himself.
This spring, Chris Cuomo got COVID. You may have noticed they did like 27 shows in a row about it. Cuomo told us he was quarantined in his basement, but let’s be honest, there are only so many squats you can do in the mirror. It got boring after a while.
So Chris Cuomo secretly left his house, took off his mask, oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen, and wandered around the Hamptons. While wandering, he promptly ran into this man who wondered what the hell Chris Cuomo was doing and asked himself, and here’s what happened next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID WHELAN, CYCLIST WHO SAW CHRIS CUOMO OUTSIDE OF HIS HOME: And I just said, “Don’t you have the coronavirus? Shouldn’t you be quarantined?” And the biggest next words were, “What the hell do you know about this? What do you know about the rules?” I said, “You’re not supposed to be out here.” Nobody had gloves on. Nobody had masks on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Okay, so it turns out Chris Cuomo doesn’t think he should have to wear a mask outside. And this is the point in the show where we wax outrage. He works on a rival network. We just can’t believe he did that. We hate Chris Cuomo because he didn’t wear a mask. We’re not going to tell you that. We’re going to tell you the truth.
It’s fine that Chris Cuomo didn’t wear a mask outside. We’re not judging him. Masks are great. They have their place. Surgeons wear masks in operating rooms. People wear masks in elevators, in crowded stores, and good for them. It probably helps.
We’ve been arguing that for six months before the Surgeon General himself recommended masks. We thought, why would masks be a bad idea? So, we’re not against mask; we never will be.
But wearing a mask while you ride your bike? While you jog? When you’re alone in your car? While you’re walking in the woods? When you’re standing on the beach? That’s just insane. That’s an insult to science, it’s an insult to commonsense. Rules like that make people cynical.
When you force them to do unreasonable things, they will never believe you again.
Rules like that help no one, and yet, they are ubiquitous. In many Democratic-controlled jurisdictions, masks are required outside. It is the law. You have no choice.
Rules like that are not about public health. Rules like that are a form of obedience training. They’re trying to see what they can make you do.
They can make you do a lot, it turns out. Most of the time, we do what they tell us. We don’t say anything. Partly because people like Chris Cuomo harangue us if we disobey the rules. Chris Cuomo calls us immoral for doubting the rules.
Then in private, he whips off his mask the second he can.
Here are pictures of Chris Cuomo this weekend, standing at a restaurant in Long Island, cigar in his hand, but no mask. Again, we don’t judge Chris Cuomo. Chris Cuomo judges us. And that’s the point.
Nancy Pelosi judges us, too. Watch Pelosi tell you that you’ve got no choice, but to wear a mask at all times.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Members in staff will be required to wear masks at all times.
This is a mask from all over the country. I am getting these masks.
Real men wear masks, and these masks are essentially important.
The Chair views the failure to wear a mask as a serious breach of decorum.
But in any case, I’m a big believer in wearing the mask and not sharing any, shall we say air, unnecessarily.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Real men wear masks. So you’re wuss if you don’t wear a mask. Wait a second, Nancy Pelosi, define man for us if you would? I thought you didn’t believe in gender. You didn’t believe in fixed sex. But you’re not a real man if you don’t wear a — what are you even saying?
She’s not saying anything. She’s just judging you, and she is lying as she does it.
We already played you the tape of Pelosi mocking her own command, slinking around a hair salon in San Francisco with no mask. That was fine with us, by the way, but not with her.
We also showed you Senator Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco hanging around a private air terminal at FBO without a mask after she called for a law requiring you and all commercial airline passengers to wear masks.
So these people are hypocrites, obviously. But it’s worse than that. They are self-righteous. Hypocrisy and self-righteousness are twins, they go together; one feeds the other, but both are poisonous habits of mind.
As soon as you begin to take yourself seriously, Thomas Merton once wrote, and imagine that your virtues are important because they are yours, you become the prisoner of your own vanity. That is true. But they’re not the only prisoners.
Suddenly, all of us are prisoners of their vanity. This summer, the vapid Governor of California made a propaganda video informing his citizens of our biggest state that if they don’t wear masks at all times, whether those masks help anyone or not, they’re bad people. Here’s part of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the sweaty faces, and the hidden smiles, the foggy glasses, and the sore ears. The determined looks, and the muffled laughs — a simple piece of fabric makes a big statement. I care. Let’s all do our part to slow the spread. Wear a mask.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: What happened to all the watchdogs who are supposed to be protecting us from state media and government propaganda? Oh, they’re all nodding in assent. “A simple piece of fabric makes a big statement. I care.” But what if it doesn’t help anyone? Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Has there ever been shallower virtue signaling? Underneath all of this is cruelty, by the way and judgment of you.
The Democrats who hold every statewide office in California understand that for totalitarians to operate a society, they need people to cooperate. So the more people turn on each other and snitch and micromanage one another’s lives, the easier their job of control will be. People without loyalty to each other are easy to command. That’s the point.
And with that in mind, the official Twitter account of the Office of California Gavin Newsom has taken a dictating, “How people chew their food.” This is how we’re responding to the pandemic, managing how people chew their food.
On Saturday, Newsom’s Twitter feed told us this, quote: “Going out to eat with members of your household this weekend? Don’t forget to keep your mask on in between bites. Do your part to keep those around you healthy,” end quote.
What are the odds that Gavin Newsom alone in his gated estate, keeps his mask on between bites? Now, we’re not bookies, but we’ll tell you, roughly speaking, the odds are zero. He doesn’t do that. But he judges you if you don’t.
And Newsom didn’t stop there. The State of California wants you to know that seeing your friends is out of the question. Human contact itself is dangerous, quote, “A solo bike ride with a mask is a safer alternative to playing basketball with your friends.” That’s what Newsom’s office wrote last month and there are many more messages like this. If you want to wreck your afternoon read them. Orwellian doesn’t begin to describe it. There’s too much.
There’s so much that Maxine Waters, the Congresswoman from California can’t even keep up. She has decided to ignore the commands completely. Back in July, you may remember, Waters was all for masks. In fact, she told us that Herman Cain deserved to die from coronavirus because he didn’t wear a mask at a Trump rally. Herman Cain was a bad person, Maxine declared. He had it coming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): I’m going to send my condolences to the family of Herman Cain, who was a presidential candidate, who is a good friend of the President, who happened to have been at the rally in Tulsa, June 20, with no mask on, with a group of people around him with no mask on and he is dead. He died.
He, of course, contacted the virus as a result of his attendance and without a mask there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, he didn’t wear a mask and he died. He deserved it. I mean, that’s what you get when you don’t wear a mask. You die. And no one mourns your passing, because you’re a bad person.
So it goes without saying that Maxine Waters takes masks seriously. Right. Of course, she doesn’t. And today we proved it.
We talked to a man called Jason Giandomenico. He told us he saw Maxine Waters recently, and guess what she wasn’t wearing? I think you know the answer. She wasn’t wearing a mask.
So he confronted her. It’s all in video. Here’s part of that video.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON GIANDOMENICO, CONFRONTED REP. MAXINE WATERS FOR NOT WEARING MASK: And you’re thinking about COVID. I don’t even see you guys putting your mask on. I see your aides have masks on.
WATERS: I am just coming out of here and my mask in both of these places.
GIANDOMENICO: But you’ve got to have your mask on, right?
WATERS: Yes, that’s right. That’s right.
GIANDOMENICA: Right, right.
WATERS: That’s right. That’s right. We’ve got our mask.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Yes, that’s right. And I’ll have my mask on. Not a big deal. It’s not like I’m Herman Cain or something. We’re not thinking through the message behind all of this or its consequences. Democrats are framing total and unthinking obedience to their policies, which are haphazard, irrational, and not rooted in science.
They are framing obedience to these things as a matter of morality, and the media is totally fine with that. They don’t even care when the people who make the rules ignore them. Only the rest of us are evil when we disobey.
How about the Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam? Ralph Northam loves masks. Ralph Northam has been wearing masks long before they were fashionable.
Thirty years ago when almost nobody thought to wear a face covering, Ralph Northam was concerned enough about public health that he put on a hood. That’s how concerned he was. Of course, he’s a doctor, a man of science. A mere mask isn’t enough. He wore a hood with little eyes cut out of it.
As Governor, Northam made it a crime in the Commonwealth of Virginia not to wear a mask. In May, Northam demanded that everyone wear a face-covering in public.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RALPH NORTHAM (D-VA): And wear a face-covering in public. We know that when most people wear mask that goes a long way toward reducing the spread of the disease. As I have said before, wearing a mask could literally save someone else’s life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Caught wearing a Klan hood. You’ve got to say he leaned into it though. Now everyone has to.
Amazingly or maybe it’s not so amazing, a day after saying that, Northam appeared in public in Virginia Beach, Virginia with, guess what? No mask. Guess what the media said? Virtually nothing. No one said Ralph Northam had it coming when in the end, he got the coronavirus.
Apparently, he wasn’t a good enough person to avoid the disease. That’s really the message so he is sick now just like Donald Trump. That’s how it works, right?
This is a medieval standard that we’re suddenly applying. This isn’t science. This is medieval superstition. It was very common. Six hundred years ago, in the Middle Ages, ordinary criminals underwent what was called a trial by ordeal.
They didn’t sit before a jury. No. The accused were forced to plunge their hands into boiling water or walk barefoot across glowing metal plowshares or they had molten lead poured on their chests. Why? To find out whether they did it or not. If they died after being tortured, they were guilty. If they survived the torture, they were innocent.
For hundreds of years, this was the standard in Europe. Health equaled virtue. Illness equaled sin. All of a sudden, we are returning to that standard. He is sick, therefore he is bad. Where is this going? How long before we start lecturing cancer patients for their tumors? How long before we start blaming people with Alzheimer’s for their dementia? That could be coming sooner than we think.
At MSNBC, one anchor was enraged when someone suggested the left hasn’t been consistent on masks. He wrote this, quote: “The most humane and reasonable way to deal with all of these people, if we survive this, is some kind of truth and reconciliation commission.” Ha? Sounds like a joke, but it wasn’t. Thousands of people liked that post, “A truth and reconciliation commission,” if we survive COVID, for the deniers. They’ll get what they deserve.
It’s an inquisition. That’s what they’re calling for. As with any inquisition the goal isn’t truth or justice, needless to say, it is power.
Put on your mask in between bites as you sit alone at the dinner table and there won’t be any problems. Otherwise, there will be.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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