Tucker Carlson is not only too cowardly to tell people whether he’s been vaccinated but now he’s too chicken to talk about his employer’s vaccine policy which Tuckums pretends to oppose. (Updated)
Carlson may have thought he would only be lobbed softballs when he appeared on The Daily Caller podcast “Save the Nation,” given that Carlson founded The Daily Caller. But it really isn’t a gotcha to ask about the Fox policy, given that Carlson’s anti-vaxism is a trademark. Nevertheless, Tuckums couldn’t take even a smidgen of the heat he sadistically doles out to others.
JASON NICHOLS (Cohost): You said Fox News has no vaccine mandate, but according to Newsweek, the company requires unvaccinated employees to submit to daily COVID testing, which is stricter than Biden’s mandate, which calls for weekly testing for businesses that employ more than 100 people. Is Fox News denying the civil liberties of its employees by being stricter than President Biden?
CARLSON: I don’t know. I mean, you should probably ask Newsweek, it sounds like they’ve got a pretty precise handle on what’s happening.
Carlson cackled nervously.
NICHOLS: Hey, if it’s wrong, let me know.
CARLSON: It’s completely wrong, as I noted the other night. …
NICHOLS: So, what is the policy? Can you tell us the policy?
CARLSON: I’m not qualified to speak for the company on this because I don’t run the company and I’m not, you know, I’m just an employee of the company. Um, my personal preference is that Fox News would, you know, make a statement about what its policies are, but I think, like a lot of companies, you know, they’re hesitant to do that, because, like, why would you even want to get involved in that conversation?
Here’s the bottom line: You know, there are a lot of infectious diseases out there – a lot. And a lot with much higher mortality rates than COVID-19. And, you know, there’s HIV. Of course, there’s tuberculosis. Of course, there are a bunch of different varieties of hepatitis which have killed many hundreds of thousands of Americans over the years, etc., etc. etc., etc. And employers are not empowered – in fact, they’re not allowed to ask employees what their status is. …
NICHOLS: But HIV isn’t a communicable disease in the same way.
CARLSON (sarcastically): Oh, really?
After Nichols pressed that last point, chickens**t anti-vaxer Carlson changed the subject, much like he did when a Time interviewer asked about his vaccination status. He even used the same bogus HIV comparison. The Time author noted he broke into a cackle then, too, which she described as “like a hyena let loose in Brooks Brothers.” Which is a pretty apt description of the cackle Tuckums broke into when he didn’t want to answer what Fox’s policy is.
Carlson went on to dishonestly characterize his situation:
CARLSON: Just to be clear, I am totally opposed to asking anybody his HIV status at work. I’m totally opposed to asking his prostate cancer status. Or what his latest blood sugar levels are. We have HIPAA laws for a reason. … My contract does not include sharing my intimate medical history with my employer or the federal government.
If someone asked me, “Have you had the vaccine?” “Are you circumcised” would be my response. “What’s your favorite sexual position? How often do you have sexual relations with your wife?” […] I’m not participating in the system, period. Ever.
Except that Carlson is not only participating in the system, he's enabling it. For one thing, asking a vaccine status is not the same as asking your health status. But more importantly, we know (because Fox HR chief Kevin Lord sent a memo to all employees) Carlson knows that Fox’s policy is exactly what he claims to oppose: Employees must either provide their vaccination status to HR or submit to daily COVID testing. These are more stringent requirements than President Biden’s.
Or to put it another way, Carlson is not only too dishonest and too spineless to utter a peep of protest about the Fox policies he supposedly abhors, he doesn’t even have the stones to admit they exist.
You can watch Carlson’s cowardice below. (H/T Mediaite)
UPDATE: I had previously written in this post that Carlson was vaccinated. My conclusion was based on his coy refusals refusals to say whether or not he had been. But since writing this, Carlson has publicly stated he "skipped" the vaccines.
But, then, all I have to do is resist the temptation to use the remote and the very next segment restores my faith in the world: Fox(not)News is hypocritical. Full stop.