On Sunday’s CNN Newsroom, host Fredricka Whitfield brought on correspondent Randi Kaye for a laughably bad segment which almost seemed like a parody of CNN. Kaye, who was tasked with covering Tampa Bay during the Super Bowl this weekend, bragged about her double mask due to the large crowds in Tampa and about calling the cops on maskless fans.
Whitfield began the segment by demonstrating CNN’s continued double standard on crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic by asking Kaye about “concern about crowds who are converging and people not taking all the precautions that have been recommended.”
Of course, CNN has had little to say about the large crowds during BLM protests and the celebrations for Joe Biden after it was announced that he won the presidency. It only focuses on condemning crowds that are not gathering to support Democratic causes.
This is also the same network that in May featured reporter Kaitlan Collins scolding Donald Trump about not wearing a mask. She promptly ripped off her own mask. (Yet on Christmas Eve, Wolf Blitzer gushed over Santa Claus wearing a mask on the NORAD Santa Tracker.)
On Sunday, Kaye melted down about the crowd size, but assured viewers that she was safe because she was wearing a double mask:
Oh, yeah, there’s a lot of concern here, Fred, hence my double mask that I'm wearing. Here, we're at the Poorhouse in Tampa, and if you take a look here behind me, you can see there's a pretty healthy crowd here. They -- we are outside and they are doing their best to safely social distance. But there are a lot of people here. Some of them are just hanging out at tables. They're not all from the same party obviously or are from the same family, which is what officials recommend, but they are outside. But let me show you this video from last night on Super Bowl eve from Ybor City, just take a look at this. This is a huge amount of people, hundreds of people in the street. And you can see most of them are not even wearing masks. We're also told that they were on the dance floors in a lot of these clubs and the dance floors right now during the pandemic are supposed to actually be closed.
Kaye stated that she called the police in order to bring them to justice by fining them:
I gave a call to Tampa Police to ask them what's going on with all these people that are out and about and not wearing masks because there is a mask mandate in the City of Tampa while this pandemic is underway and during this time of the game there. You're supposed to be wearing a mask if you're anywhere near Raymond James Stadium, if you're in a bar or a restaurant or anywhere in one of these event or entertainment areas. And you can see from the pictures and the video that we have that people are just not paying much attention to that mask mandate. They are supposed to be fined up to $500.00. So I asked the Tampa Police, how many citations have been issued? What do you want to say in response to this? What's being done about it? Because a lot of people are upset about it. And they have not gotten back to me yet.
This IS the same Randi Kaye who in 2006 expressed concern that Saddam Hussein's execution by hanging would be inhumane, that Saddam wouldn’t die immediately: "With such a tight noose, three minutes seems like a very long time to actually cut off somebody's air."
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Read the full February 7th transcript here:
CNN Newsroom with Fredricka Whitfield
2/7/21
3:51:53 PM
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: And let's go to Tampa right now where we find CNN's Randi Kaye and Randi, despite warnings from officials and from the NFL itself, you know, we are seeing pictures emerge of massive crowds partying in Tampa's club district. You're at a bar in that general location, right? Does there remain a lot of concern about crowds who are converging and people not taking all the precautions that have been recommended?
RANDI KAYE (CNN CORRESPONDENT): Oh, yeah, there’s a lot of concern here, Fred, hence my double mask that I'm wearing. Here, we're at the Poorhouse in Tampa, and if you take a look here behind me, you can see there's a pretty healthy crowd here. They -- we are outside and they are doing their best to safely social distance. But there are a lot of people here. Some of them are just hanging out at tables. They're not all from the same party obviously or are from the same family, which is what officials recommend, but they are outside. But let me show you this video from last night on Super Bowl eve from Ybor City, just take a look at this. This is a huge amount of people, hundreds of people in the street. And you can see most of them are not even wearing masks. We're also told that they were on the dance floors in a lot of these clubs and the dance floors right now during the pandemic are supposed to actually be closed. I gave a call to Tampa Police to ask them what's going on with all these people that are out and about and not wearing masks because there is a mask mandate in the City of Tampa while this pandemic is underway and during this time of the game there. You're not -- you're supposed to be wearing a mask if you're anywhere near Raymond James Stadium, if you're in a bar or a restaurant or anywhere in one of these event or entertainment areas. And you can see from the pictures and the video that we have that people are just not paying much attention to that mask mandate. They are supposed to be fined up to $500.00. So I asked the Tampa Police, how many citations have been issued? What do you want to say in response to this? What's being done about it? Because a lot of people are upset about it. And they have not gotten back to me yet. But a lot of people here in town, Fred, a lot of out-of-towners. That's what people are concerned about. About 30,000 people a day have been coming in through Tampa International Airport and they are very, very concerned that they are going to see a spike, already about a 10 percent positivity rate here, they certainly don't want that to go up in the county -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: Wow, I mean, a lot of these pictures look kind of pre- pandemic, so I know there’s a lot of expressed concern going on. Randi Kaye, thank you so much.
