Chris Wallace Heard on Hot Mic Challenging Brit Hume’s Pandemic Claim: ‘Really? 100,000 People Dying?’

Fox News coverage of Inauguration Day took an abrupt turn when Chris Wallace was heard on a hot mic challenging Brit Hume’s claim that the media is overhyping the coronavirus crisis, which has now killed 400,000 Americans.

Wallace gave President Joe Biden a rave review for his inauguration speech during Fox’s coverage, and later in the coverage, Hume was called in to give his reaction. Hume appreciated the “unifying notes” of Biden’s address, but as he turned his attention to the president’s remarks deeming the pandemic a “crisis”, he lamented that “the media are full of this talk.”

“The situation is more friendly to Biden than he may have imagined,” Hume said. “Everyone wants to say the Covid crisis is getting worse, and certainly the numbers suggest that, but we have a vaccine! And we have every reason to believe it works.”

Hume went on to acknowledge setbacks in vaccine distribution, but he predicted it “will be fairly quickly resolved,” and “that’s one big problem that is well on the way to a solution.”

This drew an objection from Wallace, who could be heard off camera replying, “Really? 100,000 people dying?”

The audio broke up at that point and it was difficult to hear the end of Hume’s remarks.

Hume made a similar point on Twitter Wednesday, objecting to a Washington Post report that labeled the current coronavirus crisis a “disaster.”

Watch above, via Fox News.