Grieving Daughter on CNN Blames Her Father’s Covid Death Squarely on Fox News ‘Disinformation’
Kristin Urquiza, who recently wrote an obituary for her father published in The Arizona Republic, blamed Fox News and Republican leaders for his death while on Friday’s New Day.
“It’s hard for me to actually put the blame on any one individual with so much health disinformation flying around,” she told CNN’s John Berman. “People like my dad, who made decisions about how to behave based upon what he was seeing on Fox News and what the leaders who he trusted were saying, are in a position in which they are being led to a place where they’re susceptible to contracting the virus and getting very sick.”
Urquiza recognized how deep disinformation runs in our society, pointing to health inequities as well the uncertainty and mistrust surrounding public health initiatives. She co-founded a group called “Marked By Covid” to fight disinformation surrounding the potentially deadly contagion.
Berman later aired a montage of clips from Newsmax and Fox News, including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, peddling misinformation on the coronavirus and the vaccines.
Urquiza noted that the vaccine may have saved her father, as he was “otherwise healthy.”
“He was incredibly active, and I wish he were here in order to have the vaccine, have the opportunity to have the vaccine,” she added. “And we’re right now in a situation where we have to really focus on how do we save the most amount of lives possible? And with disinformation flying across cable news stations like Fox, we need to think about what is the data-informed plan. We need to bring other strategies into the mix to make sure that those most vulnerable, those who don’t have access, and young people under 12 who can’t get the vaccine, are protected.”
Urquiza’s comments come after she testified before House lawmakers in February, during which she took a thinly veiled shot at Fox News and the GOP.
“To the people in this room and this sacred body who blindly followed the president, without questioning, who put party over country, you and your colleagues are enablers,” she said. “To the media — and in particular cable news — you were complicit.”
She also appeared for a short segment during the 2020 Democratic National Convention to say her father’s “only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump.”
Watch above, via CNN.
