Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson began his eponymous show Wednesday with a lengthy monologue eviscerating the left and their allies in the media for their eager peddling of indefinite lockdowns and limits on American life with no expiration dates. Specifically, he called out the liberal media for their dangerous promotion of eternal lockdowns contributing to a massive, national mental health crisis.
Put simply, Carlson argued that when millions lose everything (financially and otherwise) and are locked in their homes, cases of addiction, depression, and suicide will explode and it’d be ignorant to think otherwise. And regardless of whether the media know this, that doesn’t absolve them of responsibility.
“The first thing to remember is that our leaders didn’t simply revoke the country’s constitutional rights one day from a cold start. They laid the groundwork first. They softened opposition by sowing fear,” Carlson stated early on, citing the media’s use of former Obama official Andy Slavitt as one example.
Along with Dr. Zeke Emanuel, Carlson pointed out that the liberal media have trotted out medical experts as objective when they’re no more than “hardened political activists” suggesting a lockdown and a choking of the economy until there’s a vaccine. Why? Because, according to Emanuel, “we have no choice.”
Before a mash-up of media clips, Carlson read one headline each from The Atlantic and The Washington Post (click “expand”):
CARLSON: A handful of political leaders made that choice. They decided to try a different approach and then immediately and in unison, they were denounced as enemies of the state. When Georgia began to reopen some of its businesses in late April, The Atlantic magazine described that plan as, "Georgia’s experiment in human sacrifice." In the words of The Washington Post Jeff Bezos’s personal newspaper: "Georgia leads the race to become America’s No. 2 death destination." As if Jack Kevorkian had become the Governor of Georgia and that was just in print. On television, the geniuses decided that relaxing the lockdowns would be far worse for Georgia than Sherman’s March to the sea.
STACEY ABRAMS [on ABC’s The View, 04/22/20]: This makes no sense and it doesn’t improve our economy. It simply puts more Georgians at risk.
CHRIS HAYES [on MSNBC’s All In, 04/22/20]: If that sounds insane to you, you’re not alone. [SCREEN WIPE] Mayors in Georgia are describing the Governor’s decision as reckless, dangerous and illogical.
CHRIS CUOMO [on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time, 04/22/20]: Georgia may be doing too much too soon.
DR. VIN GUPTA [on MSNBC Live, 04/30/20]: Right now, it’s the blind leading the blind. We have no idea what’s happening in Georgia from a case detection rate, but the Governor has decided to open it all up. We all think that’s irresponsible.
DON LEMON [on CNN Tonight, 04/22/20]: No matter what anybody tells you, no matter how many hopeful signs there may be, it’s far too early to let down our guard. It’s far too early to go back to the lives that we were living just last month. [SCREEN WIPE] And if that shocks you, it should.
CARLSON: Someday, unfortunately, that tape will be scrubbed off the internet. That’s a shame. Georgia is fine as it turns out. That was Don Lemon telling you Georgia is an incredibly dangerous place and it had an effect. Imagine if you saw Don Lemon say that while being forced to watch CNN waiting for a flight at an airport. Maybe you’re headed to Atlanta. You’d be rattled by that, of course you would be and rattling you was exactly the point of saying it. Stop thinking, obey. That was the message and was amplified day after day after day by outlets like CNN. Watch this CNN anchor a month ago remind his audience that staying locked indoors was their moral duty.
CHRIS CUOMO [on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time, 04/06/20]: The only thing that has checked this contagion is our collective conscience to stay home together as ever, as one. We know that is our true power. The question is, when will it really be put to this problem?
CARLSON: The one thing you never saw from these people, these journalists was a straightforward discussion about whether or not lockdowns actually work. You’d think that would be the first thing they would talk about, but they didn’t want to. Hundreds of millions of people ordered to stay home, only go outside for essential reasons. Does forcing people to live like that really contain a virus?
After a few moments recapping some of the ugly liberal media headlines attacking Governor Kristi Noem (R-SD), Carlson pivoted to the mental health crisis with the acknowledgment that, “for millions of healthy people at virtually no risk from dying of this virus, the lockdowns have been a life-changing disaster.”
The FNC host rewound to these March 23 comments from President Trump about the mental health crisis: “People get tremendous anxiety and depression and you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies, you have death.”
Below was Tucker’s response to that and the insensitive and ludicrous claim from the Associated Press that Trump’s fear was “baseless” (click “expand”):
In other words, bad economies don’t just make people poor, they kill people. That’s obviously true. And yet the Associated Press, the most trusted brand in news raced in with a correction. "President Donald Trump is making a baseless claim of surging suicides if the U.S. economy remains mostly shut through the spread of the coronavirus, " the AP wrote. Then they added this: "Historically, in a crisis, suicides tend to diminish as society pulls together in a common purpose." As if the government locking you in your own home for two months, taking away your job, depriving you of human contact was comparable to fighting the Second World War, a common purpose.
That’s the opposite of what it was. The people who made these orders went to their weekend houses in Aspen. They ignored the terms of their own orders. They got their hair done. A month later, The Washington Post wrote this: "The coronavirus pandemic is pushing America into a mental health crisis." Well of course, it is. Calls to the Federal Emotional Distress Hotline have gone up a thousand percent. Across American counties, the heart of the opioid epidemic, report a surge in overdoses compared to last year. By the way, in the State of New Jersey, for example, the Governor stopped AA meetings. You were not allowed to go to your AA group, but he kept liquor stores open. Okay, how do you think that worked out? Not well. But don’t worry, the AP reassures us, President Trump was “making a baseless claim” that this might affect people’s mental health and there’s more, we could go on for days.
If you or someone you know is feeling suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK. And for more on a list of reputable mental health sources, go here or check out this post from Charity Navigator.
