MSNBC’s Brian Williams Mocks Fox & Friends Late Realization That Masks Work: ‘Never Forget Who the Deniers Were’
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams wrapped his Tuesday night show by going out of his way to not just mock Fox & Friends, but to remind his viewers “who the deniers” of Covid-19 and universal mask-wearing as a practical means for abatement of the potentially deadly contagion.
Williams played a clip from what he correctly identified as President Donald Trump’s television show, in which co-host Steve Doocy shared findings from a report he had recently read that showed how masks have been very effective in limiting the spread of Covid-19 in his home state of Kansas.
It was a noteworthy moment for a show that—in the earliest days of the pandemic when very little was known about the novel coronavirus—had expressed skepticism about the disease. On-air personalities dismissed it as being no worse than the flu, and they often highlighted small business owners who protested mask mandates and lockdown orders to keep people safe.
At the end of the clip, Doocy explains to his co-hosts that, based on his research, “apparently, masks work.” Now Doocy appeared to deliver that line in a wry manner, sort of an obvious joke as if he were saying, “duh, masks work.” But Williams took a less charitable interpretation. “Apparently, masks work,” Williams followed. “A breathtaking moment of situational awareness on live television this morning.”
But then Williams twisted the knife, noting, “Ten months, 270,000 lives into this, and this is important, in a rush to a vaccine, in our rush to get life back to normal, to have a spring and summer in 2021 that feels like spring and summer, it’s important we never forget who the deniers were.”
Williams’s criticism here seems unduly harsh as Doocy has provided a rare voice of reason on Trump’s favorite show and has been a proponent of masks for a long time. There is also the issue of the glass house of questionable journalistic standards from which Williams is casting stones, which he may want to be more judicious in his criticism.
Watch above via MSNBC.
