The shameless sycophants at Fox News, who spent late February and early March deluding their audience about the danger posed by the novel coronavirus, are arguing that President Donald Trump was correct — in fact, noble — to intentionally “play it down,” as he claimed in an interview with The Washington Post‘s Bob Woodward.
In taped interviews with Woodward for his forthcoming book, Trump said on February 7 that the virus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus” (contradicting his public statements at the time), and added on March 19 that he was “playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
The Wednesday leak of those interviews triggered a media and political firestorm over the president’s deception. But Fox quickly rallied to the president, and after he doubled down at an afternoon press conference by saying that he intentionally downplayed the virus to avoid a “frenzy,” the network’s hosts have settled on the position that he was right to do that. Their argument implicitly excuses their own irresponsible coverage as the virus spread across the country. Continue reading.