Biden Spox Praises Trump for Telling Supporters to Get Vaccinated, Slams Cable News Outlets for Spreading Disinfo
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield praised former President Donald Trump for being an early adopter of the coronavirus vaccine, and for urging his supporters to do the same. But she trained her fire on cable news outlets that spread false and dangerous information about Covid immunizations.
On Tuesday morning’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Bedingfield about Trump’s “cult following,” adding for emphasis “not cult-like, cult,” and asked, “what the administration plans to do in areas where it actually can, as it pertains to these big tech companies and disinformation traveling through them to millions and millions of Americans?”
“Well one thing I would point out, Mika, is President Trump himself has gotten vaccinated, he was one of the earliest actually to get the vaccine, and has said so to his supporters,” Bedingfield said, adding “And that’s great.”
She went on to say that the administration will continue to focus on trusted local messengers, then addressed the spread of misinformation.
“With regard to social media and misinformation, [President Joe Biden] has raised, we all have a responsibility here,” Bedingfield said. “The social media companies have a responsibility, news outlets who are promoting misinformation, using their airwaves to promote misinformation, have a responsibility. He is going to call it out, he is going to continue to push, and we as an administration are going to continue to provide good accurate information, particularly about the vaccine, to make sure people get the shot so we can put this pandemic behind us once and for all.”
Brzezinski then pressed about social media companies and Section 230, asking “Should they be liable for publishing that information, and then open to lawsuits?”
“Well we are reviewing that, and certainly they should be held accountable, and I think you’ve heard the president speak very aggressively about this,” Bedingfield said, but then circled back to news outlets that spread misinformation on TV.
“He understands this is an important piece of the ecosystem. But it’s also, the other thing the president has pointed out and spoke to when he was asked about this yesterday, is it is also the responsibility of the people creating the content,” Bedingfield said. “And again I would go back to, you know there are conservative news outlets who are creating irresponsible content that’s sharing misinformation about the vaccine, about the virus, that’s getting shared on these platforms. So it is a big and complicated ecosystem, and everybody bears responsibility to ensure that we are not providing people with bad information about a vaccine that will save their lives.”
Trump has repeatedly urged his followers to get the vaccine — which he secretly received in early January — but he has not done so in an organized or forceful way, and has recently begun to exploit anti-vaccine sentiment in order to attack Biden.
And as co-host Willie Geist went on to note, several Fox News personalities have recently gone out of their way to encourage vaccinations, even as others continue to run anti-vaccine segments — sometimes nearly simultaneously.
Watch above via MSNBC.
