Late night hosts wryly compare Fox News' pro-vaccine and mask-positive polls to its anti-vax punditry
Several polls, "including one by Fox News itself, have now shown that President Biden's vaccine requirements and other COVID measures are widely popular, so Republicans and right-wing pundits have been forced to come up with increasingly insane arguments against them," Seth Meyers said on Monday's Late Night. "A Fox News poll out this weekend found that voters support mask mandates and Biden's new vaccine requirements whether in businesses, indoor establishments, or schools," while the network's opinion hosts are on an entirely different page.
"It's always funny to me when Fox conducts an accurate poll that contradicts what their own hosts are telling their audience," Meyers said. "I mean, their own polling is telling them mask and vaccine mandates are popular with the majority of Americans," while hosts like Tucker Carlson compare vaccine requirements to the government forcing him to take psychotropic drugs — an example Meyers found oddly specific, before impersonating Carlson complaining about things he's not allowed to do at Olive Garden.
"One of my favorite things about Fox News is how critical they are of Biden's mandate that employers make sure that their employees are vaccinated, when they in fact, at Fox News, have the same mandate," Jimmy Kimmel told Seth MacFarlane on Kimmel Live. MacFarlane's Family Guy is on Fox, owned by the same parent company as Fox News, but "I guess you're not a Tucker guy, you're not a Laura Ingraham fan?" Kimmel said. "No, you know, that's why we did this Family Guy PSA about vaccination," MacFarlane deadpanned, "because I looked around and I saw everyone else at Fox Corp. doing their part to get good science out there and be responsible with their platforms, and looking down the barrel of that kind of peer pressure, I said, well gosh, we gotta do something, too."
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They played part of the PSA, and MacFarlane compared the relationship between Fox News and Fox's entertainment division to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "You see on the news side, they obviously are in, you know, their imaginary fairy land, and then you have the entertainment side that's like, all right we gotta exist with these people, so let's be political and let's make the best of it," he said.
The Daily Show's Trevor Noah previewed his 2nd annual Pandemmy Awards, and among his 10 categories, Fox News swept the bad historical analogies and "Outstanding Achievements in Scapegoating," categories.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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