Radio host Joe Pagliarulo and Jerome Corsi push wild conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and a potential COVID-19 vaccine

Pagliarulo: "Why the hell does the guy who founded Microsoft, why does he want me to take a vaccine so badly?”

Written by Alex Walker

Published

Joe Pagliarulo and Jerome Corsi

Radio host Joe Pagliarulo and guest Jerome Corsi promoted anti-vaccination conspiracy theories regarding a potential coronavirus vaccine during the July 23 edition of the The Joe Pags Show.

Pagliarulo is a nationally syndicated conservative radio host based in San Antonio, Texas, who has previously voiced anti-vaccination conspiracy theories on his show. According to Talkers magazine, Pagliarulo had an estimated 4.5 million unique weekly listeners last month.

A right-wing conspiracy theorist known for his involvement in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Corsi recently drew the attention of federal prosecutors over his communications with Dr. Vladimir Zelenko and their promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. (Zelenko was also prominently featured in the right-wing media campaign on behalf of the drug.) During his appearance on Pagliarulo’s show on July 23, Corsi continued to promote hydroxychloroquine and spread a number of conspiracy theories about COVID-19, including attacks against Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.

Pagliarulo first mentioned Gates, who has been a frequent target of far-right conspiracy theories around the coronavirus pandemic, asking, “Why the hell does the guy who founded Microsoft, why does he want me to take a vaccine so badly?” Corsi then proceeded to make a number of false accusations, suggesting that Gates could be promoting a coronavirus vaccine as part of an attempt at population control, that Gates is planning to implant microchips into vaccine recipients, and that one of Gates’ vaccination efforts actually led to an epidemic. Corsi also repeated the widely debunked claim that vaccines can cause autism.

Joe Pagliarulo: "Why the hell does the guy who founded Microsoft, why does he want me to take a vaccine so badly?"

From the July 23, 2020, edition of Compass Media Networks' The Joe Pags Show

JOE PAGLIARULO (HOST): Why the hell does the guy who founded Microsoft, why does he want me to take a vaccine so badly?

JEROME CORSI: Especially when he's talking about reducing the population of the world by 25% --

PAGLIARULO: Right.

CORSI: And putting a chip or something in everybody to know what their vaccine history is, he wants to do this in Africa. He's produced vaccines like the one he did in India which actually caused an epidemic when he was trying to cure an epidemic. I mean, I think the problem is that vaccines are not the cure-all the way they are done today because they are made from these animal parts and fetal tissue and all kinds of weird stuff.

PAGLIARULO: Right.

CORSI: It's not like the polio vaccine, you know, the Salk or the Sabin vaccine, which was from a purer generation of vaccine development. These vaccines I think legitimately have concerns about causing autism, causing disease, causing lots of problems. And people are rightfully concerned about it.

Corsi also falsely suggested that Fauci was hesitant to promote hydroxychloroquine because he held a financial interest in other treatments through patents that he holds. PolitiFact has debunked this claim, and there is little evidence supporting the use of hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment.

Jerome Corsi falsely suggests Dr. Anthony Fauci stands to profit from certain coronavirus treatments

From the July 23, 2020, edition of Compass Media Networks' The Joe Pags Show

JEROME CORSI: Nobody is going to make any money on this. It happens to work and the doctors are supporting it who want to heal people. But the, you know, Fauci and the medical establishment in Washington -- it's a lie that the CDC and the NIH are only quasi-governmental. They are public-private partnerships, they are in bed with big pharmacy. They are also 501(c)(3) foundations, Bill Gates puts a ton of money into them. And under the Bayh-Dole Act, which was published like 30 years ago when Bob Dole was in the Senate, that act allows Fauci and the other doctors to patent treatments on various diseases. So Fauci, for instance, holds patents on some HIV-1 pathogens, that's the AIDS disease, including this glycoprotein 120 which happens to be in COVID-19. Now he'll make beaucoup bucks, he'll make $150,000 a year on those patents if they show up in the treatments that are used.