Fox won’t say who it’s testing in “an abundance of caution” but there's quite a long list of hosts and reporters who have spent time in close proximity to maskless Trumpers in the middle of the Trump World pandemic.
Chris Wallace, who moderated Tuesday night’s debate, when Trump may have already known he was infected or a COVID carrier, has said that he will be tested on Monday. After the debate, Wallace spent time with executive chairman of the Fox Corporation Lachlan Murdoch, FNC anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, as well as CEO Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace, according to New York Times reporter Michael M. Grynbaum who did a roundup of the known and likely candidates for testing.
But they may be the least endangered. Grynbaum notes that Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Pete Hegseth, three of the network’s biggest Trump cheerleaders, seem to have been the most exposed:
Sean Hannity, Fox News’s top-rated opinion star, also broadcast from inside the debate hall, during which he conducted an in-person interview with the president’s son, Donald J. Trump Jr., who sat only a few inches away from Mr. Hannity. Other Fox News personalities were on a set outside the venue, including the political analysts Brit Hume, Dana Perino, and Juan Williams, and the anchor Bill Hemmer. Karl Rove, the Republican strategist and Fox News contributor, was also there.
…
In addition, Laura Ingraham, the 10 p.m. opinion host on Fox News, attended a news conference at the White House on Saturday where Mr. Trump announced the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Another Fox News host, Pete Hegseth, also attended. Many of those in the crowd at the Barrett event did not wear masks.
That Amy Coney Barrett news conference looks like a superspreader event. NPR did the math and counted at least eight attendees who have tested positive since then.
Grynbaum reported that Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts and Fox News Radio correspondent Jon Decker are also expected to be tested.
(Ingraham image via screen grab)
I don’t want to ape the hosts of Fox(not)News by wishing their demise but am experiencing a measure of schadenfreude at the prospect of hearing that many of them will probably have a harrowing bout with the disease. Both immediately and in the middle and long term.
As CNN keeps reminding viewers (to their great credit, IMO), a lot of people in the country don’t have access to the quality of care that these criminally negligent GOPers and panderers will probably get.
