Fox News host Laura Ingraham is once again in the spotlight for questionable discussions with her guests while on the air.
She and guest Raymond Arroyo joked about CNN hosts Chris Cuomo and Brooke Baldwin publicly chronicling their struggles with the virus, likening the coverage to a reality show.
Cuomo and Baldwin have kept audiences apprised of their recovery in an attempt to educate on symptoms of the virus and to give some hope that it really is survivable.
Arroyo commented that the two Anchors were acting like reality TV stars.
"There seems to be a deliberate attempt to graft a slew of CNN anchors onto this COVID crisis. A number of them have contracted the virus and emoted their personal experiences."
"It almost appears they've launched a series of new reality shows. You could call this one 'Are You Sicker Than A CNN Anchor?'"
The inappropriate attempt at humor wasn't the end though.
Arroyo continued his criticism after a montage of clips from the CNN hosts detailing their experiences.
"Laura, the self-referential emoting is what is so daunting. People are dying and losing their livelihoods. Chances are, young and healthy anchors will not succumb to the disease."
"And to keep this narrative going every night that's so personal, it is disturbing. Because you lose all perspective. It is great to have perspective, but to become the story is a big problem here. And CNN really should tamp down their personal stories."
Ingraham repeated several times throughout the segment that she was glad that Cuomo and Baldwin were recovering and that she was sure they are "good people" even though they were "always being kind of nasty to us."
She didn't let things go at that, though, feeling the need to question a recent story about Chris Cuomo's recovery and exit from quarantine in his basement.
"But I don't really get it. I guess—is that the news? It's news that Chris Cuomo came out of the basement?"
Many Twitter users were not at all amused by Ingraham and Arroyo's "joke."
Despite the controversy, Ingraham has showed no signs of issuing an apology for the segment.
Given the many ridiculous things she has done to intentionally offend large portions of the population so someone will pay attention to her, it seems unlikely she will apologize.
This is not the first time Ingraham has come under fire for misinformation about the virus, either. Dr.
Doctor Anthony Fauci corrected her comparison of the virus to HIV/AIDS during his appearance on her show just last week.
Dr. Fauci corrects Laura Ingraham on false Covid-19 comparisonyoutu.be
When Ingraham asserted that we have survived SARS and HIV without vaccines—ergo the current pandemic will be just fine too—Fauci quickly stepped in with the facts.
"We don't have a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, but we have spectacularly effective treatment. People who invariably would have died years ago right now are leading essentially normal lives. SARS is a different story. SARS disappeared."
He explained that SARS disappeared while scientists were working on a vaccine, after only infecting about 8,100 people.
For comparison, over 2.6 million people worldwide have contracted the viral pathogen at the heart of the current global pandemic.
"I think it's a little bit misleading maybe to compare what we are going through now with HIV or SARS, they're really different."
Not one to accept the word of an expert, Ingraham then said that if Sars just disappeared, the current virus could as well.
Fauci calmly refuted that false assertion too.
"You know, anything could, Laura, but I have to tell you the degree of efficiency of transmissibility of this is really unprecedented in anything that I've seen. It's an extraordinarily efficient virus in transmitting from one person to another."
“Those kind of viruses don't just disappear."
The book Talk Radio's America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States is available here.
