NYT’s Friedman Slams Freedom Convoy — ‘Foolish and Selfish’

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Friday ripped the Freedom Convoy trucker protests intended to combat coronavirus restrictions.

Friedman told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the protest was part of “a pandemic of the foolish and selfish.” He acknowledged the truckers have the right to protest but said it was lacking “logic.”

“[R]ight now, we have a pandemic of the foolish and the selfish,” Friedman asserted. “You know, what are the governments asking of these drivers who cross borders back and forth every day is get quarantined — get vaccinated, fully vaccinated, or be quarantined. Do it for yourself, do it for your neighbors, most of all, do it for the doctors and nurses who have been completely exhausted after two years of this, so you won’t be putting additional pressure on them. And so I find all of this, all being done in the name of freedom — freedom from who? From Mother Nature? It’s just nonsense. And we’re so late into this. It’s so hurtful to their neighbors, to the doctors and nurses, and ultimately to their economies.”

“But, Tom, they do have the right to protest,” host Becky Quick replied.

“Sure, you have the right to protest, but you should have at least a logic to your protest,” Friedman said. “They have a right to protest, and I have a right to tell them their protest is stupid and selfish.”

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