On Monday, we called Mika Brzezinski's claim that President Trump is in essence on the take regarding hydroxychloroqine "perhaps the most explosive accusation yet against President Trump made by a liberal media member."
On his Fox News show last night, Tucker Carlson blasted Brzezinski along similar lines: "That's paranoid, and crazy, and stupid. In the middle of a national crisis to say something like that on your stupid television show is totally wrong."
Carlson began the segment by making a fascinating observation: the media and political establishment consider it perfectly reasonable to take the risk of shutting down the country and destroying millions of jobs. But they are aghast at the risk of using "a decades-old drug off label without going through the FDA approval process."
Here's the transcript.
Fox News
Tucker Carlson Tonight
4/6/20
8:35 pm EDTTUCKER CARLSON: For the media and our political establishment, shutting the entire country down for months and destroying tens of millions of jobs to fight this virus, seems like a perfectly reasonable risk to take. But what risk isn’t worth taking, what’s too dangerous, what’s crazy, what's voodoo FDA approval process. A drug, by the way, many of us who traveled abroad have already taken with no major side effects. A few weeks ago, the president expressed hope the malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, might be used effectively to treat coronavirus and the media have been attacking him and the drug ever since.
CNN REPORTER: He did say he would try an unproven antiviral drug, hydroxychloroquine.
WOLF BLITZER: Kept making the point about this unproven drug that might be successful in dealing with the coronavirus.
BRIAN STELTER: Yesterday was a very disturbing briefing at the White House, I thought. To hear the president talking about this unproven drug, which hopefully will help many people who have this disease, but to say, hey, people should try it, what do they have to lose? They actually could have a lot to lose.
CARLSON: MSNBC went even further than that, and if you’ve heard of more reckless claim during a pandemic, call us because we haven't, we would like to know what it is. They claim the president must have some kind of financial stake in this drug.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Dr. Fauci wasn’t allowed to talk about what he feels is important to say about this drug that the president keeps pushing, a lot of people would say, follow the money: there’s got to be some sort of financial tie to someone somewhere that has the president pushing this repeatedly.
CARLSON: That's paranoid, and crazy, and stupid. In the middle of a national crisis to say something like that on your stupid television show is totally wrong. And by the way, chloroquine has been off patent for an awfully long time. The drug was first discovered in like 1935 [meaning it is generic, can be and is produced by many, is very cheap, and offers very small profit possibilities.]
