- President Joe Biden mocked the Fox News hosts at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
- He said everyone has to be vaccinated to get access to the event, including the Fox News hosts.
- Since the rollout of vaccinations, various Fox News hosts have sowed fear about its efficacy.
President Joe Biden on Saturday mocked Fox News hosts at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, saying they’re all vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“I know there are a lot of questions about whether we should gather here tonight because of COVID,” he said during his remarks at the annual dinner. “Well, we’re here to show the country that we’re getting through this pandemic.”
“Plus, everyone has to prove they are fully vaccinated and boosted,” Biden continued. “Just contact your favorite Fox News reporter. They’re all here. Vaccinated and boosted.”
Since vaccinations against the coronavirus have started to roll out, various Fox News hosts have sowed fear about its efficacy.
Tucker Carlson, for example, frequently encouraged his viewers to doubt whether the vaccines effectively protect people against the coronavirus.
“There are a lot of those people giving you medical advice on television, and you should ignore them,” he said last year. “The advice they’re giving you isn’t designed to help, it’s designed to make you comply. And you shouldn’t comply mindlessly. You’re an American adult. You’re allowed to ask simple questions and then demand clear answers.”
It’s not clear whether Carlson was at the dinner, and Fox News did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
After Biden’s jab, some Fox News hosts said on air that they aren’t vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“And [Biden] tried to call out Fox News and say Fox News is all vaccinated,” Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy said.
“That’s not true. He’s not vaccinated,” she added, pointing to a co-host. “I’m not vaccinated.”
—Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 1, 2022
Campos-Duffy said she didn’t attend the dinner because she’s not vaccinated.
The network’s coverage, which sharply scrutinized vaccine mandates, has prompted former Fox executives to speak out in protest.
Former network executive Joseph Azam, for example, said you can draw a “straight line” connecting anti-vaccine information coming out of Fox and millions of Americans who say they don’t want to be vaccinated.
“I think Fox has been almost single-handedly responsible for the politicization of public health in the US and the creation of vaccine hesitancy in a significant portion of the population,” Azam told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Meanwhile, health officials all over the country have urged Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, saying it’s effective in significantly diminishing the risk for severe symptoms that could require hospitalization.
In the US, about 67% of the total population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, meaning having had received either two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, or a single shot of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.