After spending the better part of a year being dragged for spreading conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and vaccines, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has upped the ante.
In an interview with ESPN released Friday, anti-vaxxer Rodgers also dug into the provably false far-right assertion Democratic President Joe Biden isn't the actual President of the United States, and that he stole the 2020 election.
In the interview, Rodgers derisively questioned Biden's win and called his administration the "fake White House."
Rodgers' comments to ESPN were in response to a moment in December when Biden jokingly told a woman in a Packers jacket to tell Rodgers to get the vaccine following his scandal in which Rodgers announced he had lied to the NFL about his vaccination status.
Rodgers retorted with a rambling diatribe full of conspiracy theories.
He told ESPN:
"When the president of the United States says, 'This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,' it's because him and his constituents, which, I don't know how there are any if you watch any of his attempts at public speaking, but I guess he got 81 million votes."
After sowing doubt about Biden's legitimacy despite a total lack of evidence, Rodgers then continued his criticism using totally incorrect statistics about COVID-19.
"But when you say stuff like that, and then you have the CDC, which, how do you even trust them, but then they come out and talk about 75% of the COVID deaths have at least four comorbidities."
While the right has repeatedly echoed these statistics, the CDC said no such thing. The claim is based on a frequently misquoted interview with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in which she cited a recent study that found that of 1.2 million vaccinated COVID patients, just 36 died, 28 of whom--or roughly 75%--had at least four risk factors.
That puts skepticism like Rodgers' in almost farcically stark relief, but that didn't stop him from doubling down on his absurd claims and criticisms. He went on to say:
"And you still have this fake White House set saying that this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated, that's not helping the conversation."
Again, there is no evidence that Biden's election to the Presidency was illegitimate and the scientific and medical communities, including doctors in the myriad American hospitals on the brink of collapse, have repeatedly reported the overwhelming majority of their COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. As the right-wing loves to say, "Facts don't care about your feelings," Mr. Rodgers.
As if this embarrassingly arrogant and ignorant interview weren't bad enough, Rodgers and the Packers then went on to a stunning one-and-done playoff loss to the San Francisco 49'ers Saturday in which Rodgers played uniquely terribly.
Taken all together, Rodgers is getting dragged harder than ever before.
On the bright side, as several on Twitter pointed out Rodgers will now have an entire year to "do his own research" on the pandemic and the election and maybe figure out how wrong he is. It could happen!
@thekalenallen/Threads
U.S. Mint
