Tucker Carlson calledBarack Obama a "creepy old guy" for encouraging COVID-19 vaccination.- The Fox
News host attacked Obama for filming a PSA encouraging young people to get the shot. - In recent weeks, Carlson has cast doubt over the safety of the COVID-19
vaccine on his show.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday called former President Barack Obama "a creepy old guy" and attacked him and other public figures for promoting COVID-19 vaccines.
Obama recently filmed a public service announcement for Yahoo News in which he encouraged vaccination. A short version of the PSA was posted on Yahoo News' TikTok account, targeted to the platform's predominately young users.
"I want to talk about you getting yours," Obama said. "The vaccine is safe, it's effective, it's free. I got one, Michelle got one, people you know got one. And now, you can get one too."
During Monday night's show, Tucker called the PSA encouraging young people to get the COVID-19 vaccine "a creepy little video telling small children to get the shot."
Carlson described Obama as "some creepy old guy telling your children, your little kids, to take medicine whose effects we do not fully understand." He also attacked NBC News and CNN personalities and contributors for strongly promoting vaccination and framing it as the path back to normalcy.
-Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 4, 2021
There is no COVID-19 vaccine, however, that has been authorized to be given to young children.
So far, Pfizer - BioNTech's vaccine is only approved for people 16 and older. The drugmaker has been conducting trials of it's vaccine's safety and efficacy in children aged 12 to 15, with The New York Times reporting that the Food and Drug Administration could greenlight the shot for that younger age group as soon as next week.
Carlson, in recent weeks, has cast doubt over the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine on his show. He even suggested that the vaccine is being forced on American people.
In Monday night's show, Carlson called out "unresolved concerns" over the COVID-19 vaccine's effect on women's fertility.
However, as Insider's Anna Medaris Miller and Rachel Hosie have reported, there is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine includes ingredients that could hamper fertility. In reality, the vaccine was proven safe for pregnant women, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially recommending that pregnant people get vaccinated.
The falsehood that vaccines cause infertility appears to have originated with a December 2020 Facebook post incorrectly claiming that the vaccines and Pfizer's shot, in particular, cause the body to attack proteins integral in forming the placenta.
Carlson also went after GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who has been conducting a number of focus groups on vaccine hesitancy among former President Donald Trump's supporters. The Fox News host also seized the opportunity to lash out at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has rented a space from Luntz in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, DC.