One of the best lines from SNL over the weekend came from Cecily Strong’s Jeanine Pirro, trying to downplay the coronavirus threat: “Americans are not at risk,” she said. “Especially [Fox News viewers] who skew elderly, are in bad health, live cloistered together in homes specifically for sick people, and have smoked their entire lives.”

It’s funny because it’s terrifyingly true. The very people who are at most risk are receiving the worst information because their only source of news comes from Fox News and Trump’s Twitter feed:

There’s a pandemic happening right now and the president is tweeting about total nonsense pic.twitter.com/2lFhyXcDEf

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 10, 2020

We have a President who has no f**king idea what he’s doing and is trying to downplay the threat, much to the consternation of the International community (even our closest ally). Meanwhile, while Trump continues to insist that the Coronavirus is partisan fake news, his Administration is inexplicably ordering immigration courts to remove coronavirus posters, because … Trump wants immigrants to get coronavirus?

The Fox News machine is working, too, and now many of the very people at most risk believe the threat of the coronavirus is a hoax.

These are really stunning polling results by @SurveyMonkey showing the partisan divide on how the coronavirus is portrayed in the news. 62% of Republicans believe the news is "exaggerated" while a plurality of Independents and Dems feel it is "generally correct." Chart by @axios pic.twitter.com/vI478xI2Ql

— John Anzalone (@JohnAnzo) March 10, 2020

Why would they believe that? Here’s, for instance, Trish Regan with a heap-load of stupid:

Fox's Trish Regan warns that Democrats are using coronavirus as "another attempt to impeach the President" pic.twitter.com/LoEPVmwAGV

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 10, 2020

Out of all this, however, came a voice of reason last night, and that voice of reason was … holy sh*t, Tucker Carlson. WHAT?

Tucker Carlson pushing back against coronavirus coverage from those who "have spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem."

"'It's just partisan politics,' they say. 'Calm down. In the end this is just like the flu.'

Carlson: "It's definitely not just the flu" pic.twitter.com/h7N20Pi2Bd

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 10, 2020

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Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.

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