Fox’s Howard Kurtz Criticizes Pundits — Including Colleague Geraldo Rivera — for ‘Shaming’ the Unvaccinated

On Sunday’s MediaBuzz, Fox News’ Howard Kurtz criticized pundits “shaming” unvaccinated Americans — and that included Fox colleague Geraldo Rivera.

The spread of the Delta variant has led to a rise in covid cases around the United States, and there’s been a great deal of frustration that more people aren’t vaccinated against the virus. Rivera said on The Five last week that people who aren’t vaccinated should at least get tested every week, and if they’re not, “you are an arrogant, selfish SOB.”

Kurtz opened his show saying, “I knew it, I knew from the moment that CNN’s Don Lemon denounced unvaccinated Americans for their idiotic behavior that we were headed into a surge of anger against those who haven’t gotten the shots.”

The “rising resentment against the vaccinated,” Kurtz argued, is “driven by the pundits.”

He proceeded to show the aforementioned comments from Rivera, before bringing up Piers Morgan calling out the unvaccinated and comments from President Joe Biden.

Kurtz said he wants more people persuaded to get the vaccine, but “ripping them and ridiculing them, slamming and shaming them isn’t going to work, it just ticks them off, and these piling-on pundits ought to know better.”

Later on in the show, Kurtz went back to this issue, asking, “What about media people like Don Lemon, Geraldo, Piers Morgan, who are saying that if you haven’t gotten the shot, you’re arrogant, you’re selfish, you’re ignorant, you’re idiotic. How does that help the situation?”

Columnist Clarence Page said people have many different reasons for not being vaccinated yet, including a lack of access in some cases.

“I still think that yelling at them and shaming them is just precisely the wrong thing to do,” Kurtz said.

Some Fox News hosts have been called out for notable and irresponsible anti-vaccine commentary, including segments from Tucker Carlson this past week.

You can watch above, via Fox News.