President Donald Trump and his administration have scrambled to dismiss the threat posed by the rapidly-spreading novel coronavirus—even if that dismissal comes at the expense of public awareness.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fox News and Fox Business hosts have followed the President's lead, claiming that Democrats are deliberately overblowing the coronavirus threat in an attempt to undermine Trump's presidency.
Some recent screenshots posted by Media Matters Senior Fellow Matthew Gertz indicate just how outrageous some of the President's more unflinching allies at Fox News are willing to get in order to protect his reputation against a looming pandemic.
Check these out.
Some of the segments like Sean Hannity and Fox Business's Trish Regan railed against journalists for accurately covering the Trump administration's response to the virus—contradicting messaging, botched testing kits, and all.
For them, that was too partisan.
Fox News
Fox Business
Regan's segment came just hours after she trended on Twitter for a bizarre diatribe in which she accused the left of making coronavirus the new "impeachment scam" at the expense of the President and Americans as a whole.
Others, like Lou Dobbs and Laura Ingraham, fell over themselves to shower the President with praise for "protecting Americans" and "holding [the] nation together."
Fox Business
Fox News
And—of course—somebody inevitably brought up Hillary Clinton and Benghazi.
People had some strong reactions to the samples.
In the face of a growing public health crisis, misinformation like this could be harmful.
The attempts to glorify Trump and dismiss the outbreak is even more unsettling when one considers that Fox News has a high proportion of viewers over 65—the age group most endangered by the virus's symptoms.
@ryanmarino/Bluesky
@krassenstein/X
@aimeelouwood/Instagram
@aimeelouwood/Instagram
@aimeelouwood/Instagram
@aimeelouwood/Instagram