Correction (4/29/20): The video caption originally misspelled the MSNBC host's name as “Christ Hayes.” It has been updated.
Watch Chris Hayes call out Tucker Carlson’s coronavirus hypocrisy and fake populism
Hayes: “Tucker Carlson, who has been broadcasting in safe isolation, is telling you it's safe to go out. That's his message to you bus drivers, and you people who work in meat processing facilities, and you who are providing elder care”
Published
Video file
Citation
From the April 28, 2020, edition of MSNBC's All in with Chris Hayes
CHRIS HAYES (HOST): There is a reason that many of the employees of Fox News, which is based in New York, are working from home right now. At least someone there understands why it is important to continue to keep physical distance. Now, the question of precisely how long lockdown should last is a difficult one, and there is no single black and white scientific answer. But as for the scientific basis for lockdowns, well the science is literally the germ theory of disease. It is the 19th century discovery that, yes, infectious diseases are caused by microscopic organisms, like bacteria and viruses that are transmitted through interpersonal contact. And that is the scientific basis for greatly reducing interpersonal contact. The whole point about shelter in place is that, yes, it's the most basic science we have. What we want, what we want to get to, is the more sophisticated scientific solutions, the ones that allow us to leave our homes. That's what we're trying to get to. That is what Americans, ordinary, everyday working Americans have bought the time to do with their own sacrifices.
And yet, Tucker Carlson, who has been broadcasting in safe isolation, is telling you it's safe to go out. That's his message to you bus drivers, and you people who work in meat processing facilities, and you who are providing elder care in a senior home or assisted living facility, or a cashier at a grocery store, or working in an Amazon warehouse. The cable news pundit wants you to get back out there because it's just not that deadly. But for all the faux populist ire being mounted by the conservative politics legacy case from La Jolla, polling shows most Americans continue to believe that shelter in place is the right policy. In fact, more than three in four Americans who have lost work, lost work or lost pay from the virus, still support stay at home measures.
But here's the thing, if Tucker Carlson truly thinks people need to get back out there, he can help. Because right now, they need people in assisted living facilities that have been decimated by this. And they need people in meat and pork processing plants, too. They've lost a ton of people to this disease. So get in there if you think it's that bad, go chop up some pork. At the beginning of this horrible period, the president, along with his lackeys and advisers and propagandists, they all minimized what was coming. They said it was just like a cold or the flu.