WATCH: House Subcommittee Witness Calls Fox News ‘Complicit’ in Her Father’s Coronavirus Death During Emotional Testimony
House lawmakers held a committee hearing on the impact of disinformation and conservative media, during which, they heard emotional testimony from a witness who pronounced Fox News “complicit” in her father’s death from the coronavirus.
One of the witnesses on Wednesday was Kristin Urquiza, a co-founder of the grassroots organization Marked by COVID. Urquiza drew media attention months ago when she spoke at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, told the story of her father’s death from Covid and said “his only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life.”
In her opening statement, Urquiza once again blamed the Trump administration for her father’s death, citing the former president’s mishandling of the pandemic and the copious misinformation he pushed about it. She went on to add that “crime and malfeasance aren’t always committed by a single actor. Frequently there are accomplices, enablers and complicit parties.”
“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,” said Urquiza. “To the media — and in particular cable news — you were complicit.”
From there, Urquiza recalled how her father listened to Trump when the ex-president called for the country’s reopening despite the pandemic’s ongoing spread. She became steadily more emotional as she said Fox News was one of her fathers’ preferred news sources, and she holds them responsible for his death too.
The people in charge, the people he trusted and voted for told him over and over again that he didn’t have to worry, and I did my best to fight back, but there is no way that one person can compete with the microphone of the office of the president, nor the propaganda machine that has become Fox Cable News. He died on June 30th alone, with just a nurse holding his hand. This should not have happened. It did not have to be this way. The president and his enablers lied repeatedly, and that disinformation was allowed to litter the airways and created the exact right conditions for the virus to thrive, and for hundreds of thousands of people to pass away needlessly…Cable news channels like Fox News are complicit.
The hearing also included counterpoints from other committee members including Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Rep. Cathy McMorris (R-WA) — who decried the proceeding as “an obvious, direct attack on the First Amendment.” McMorris condemned efforts by Democrats to censure right-wing media outlets, saying, “That sounds like actions from the Chinese Communist Party, not duly-elected representatives of the United States Congress.”
Watch above, via OAN.
