Why Won’t Tucker Carlson Tell His Viewers If He’s Been Vaccinated?

Tucker Carlson has not revealed to viewers whether he has been vaccinated against Covid-19.

This is a fact that stands out among many cable news personalities and likely has a significant impact on the persistent and remarkable amount of vaccine-hesitant Americans, many of whom share the same political beliefs and demographic makeup of Fox News viewers. Carlson hosts the highest-rated show on Fox News, as well as all of cable news, so his silence on this issue is not a small thing.

It’s not as though the host has ignored the issue. Carlson covered vaccines a lot over the past few months, and the most charitable way to describe his position is mostly wrong.

This week, Carlson speciously suggested that thousands of people who were dying after being vaccinated were dying because of the vaccines. To make his case, the cable news host misleadingly citing a government reporting system he appeared to not understand.

Carlson hedged his warnings about the vaccine with an odd disclaimer. “Vaccines are not dangerous,” he said, adding, “that’s not a guess; we know that pretty conclusively from the official numbers.”

You would be forgiven, as a Tucker Carlson viewer, if you were left confused about whether vaccines are deadly or safe.

Carlson doubled down on Thursday, somehow blaming his apparent misunderstanding of the data on the Biden administration.

It’s hard to believe that the confusion Carlson is stoking about vaccinations is an accident. He is an intelligent man and is precise and intentional with his words. Fox News colleagues often privately call him a “genius.” This not only makes his crusade against the vaccines baffling but also unforgivable. The vaccines have been proven to be safe and effective against a virus that has killed more than half a million Americans. Vaccine hesitancy will cause more deaths and a longer pandemic.

Ironically, the persistent number of vaccine-hesitant Americans will delay the return to “normalcy” that so many of Tucker Carlson’s viewers are passionate about. Polls show that the vast majority of those unwilling to get vaccinated are the White conservatives that Carlson designs his show for.

The Biden administration is so concerned about this segment of the nation’s population that they added a $3 billion line item to the Covid Relief Bill to specifically communicate with the vaccine-hesitant set through media buys on conservative outlets. Jen Psaki has pointed to partnerships with NASCAR, the 700 Club, and other outlets as a means to reach these individuals. But getting Carlson to promote the vaccine would likely be just as, if not more, effective.

The Fox News host has repeatedly praised the science and effort that allowed for such a quick rollout of the vaccine. He has congratulated viewers that have been vaccinated. What he has not yet done, however, is shared whether he has taken the vaccine himself. Perhaps he thinks one’s inoculation against Covid-19 is a private matter, and to flaunt one’s vaccination is an embarrassing act of attention-seeking (not the strongest argument for a cable news host to make).

Last week, Tucker Carlson went to bat for Joe Rogan, who had told his legion of podcast listeners that young people didn’t need the vaccine. “If you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I’ll go no,” Rogan said. “If you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”

“So if you’re at risk, get the vaccine, protect yourself, be happy with it, be grateful we have the vaccine,” Carlson said in support of Rogan. “And if you’re not at risk, maybe you don’t. Is that a crazy point?” Of course, both Rogan and Carlson neglected to note that while young people are at lower risk to face serious illness from Covid-19, they can still spread the virus, putting others who are more vulnerable at risk.

Last week, at the tail end of a segment in which he supported Joe Rogan telling young people to not get vaccinated (Rogan walked those comments back, Carlson did not) the Fox News host spoke to Fox News political analyst Brit Hume.

“I’ve had a million vaccines over my lifetime, and I think vaccines are great,” Carlson said.

“I’m fully vaccinated, and I urge everybody to do that,” Hume noted. “I think it’s a mistake not to get one.” But he also added just a bit of a question for viewers on the fence, saying, “but I can certainly understand why people would be hesitant given the way the government has been all over the place on this issue.”

Carlson sat silently. He did not nod in agreement with his guest, as he does frequently. He did not say whether he had been vaccinated himself, and instead blamed the government for confusing people by not listing restrictions for the vaccinated more quickly.

“They are making people afraid and cynical,” Carlson said, before ending yet another cynical, confounding, and fear-mongering segment about vaccines.

Watch above via Fox News.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.