Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech pushed back on the idea that COVID-19 misinformation is “killing people” like President Joe Biden claimed, telling Fox News political analyst Juan Williams the White House is “lying” to the American people.
“So the government, I think, is right to say this is wrong,” Williams said. “That’s all that’s being said. That this is [the] wrong kind of information and that these platforms, they always say it’s not our fault, we don’t have anything to do with the content. But in fact, the content on their platforms is literally killing people.”
Biden said Friday that Facebook and other platforms are “killing people” with coronavirus falsehoods, which comes a day after White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the administration is working with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s company to flag posts viewed as “misinformation.”
Domenech reacted sternly to Williams, arguing that no evidence supported his repetition of Democrat talking points.
“I want to see that case made by Juan Williams,” Domenech said. “I want him to find one example, one person in this country who has died because of the misinformation that he’s talking about in this instance.”
“Because this is a lie,” Domenech continued. “The president’s lying to you. The surgeon general’s lying to you. Anyone who makes the case that this is actually killing people is lying to you. What is a vastly much more strong argument to make is that what’s killing people — what is leading people to not get vaccinated — is the policies of governments across this nation who are saying that, despite the fact that we said ‘if you get vaccinated you don’t have to wear a mask anymore … your kids can go to school,’ they’re rolling all of that back.”
Williams doubled down on the White House’s baseless conspiracy, noting, “I’ve not only seen people interviewed saying that this disinformation led, in some cases, to their parents to resist the vaccine and then end up dead, I’ve seen a man talk about his family.”
The publisher then told Williams, “This is as silly as saying the reason Donald Trump got elected was because of Facebook memes that said Jesus had endorsed him.”
“It just doesn’t pass the smell test,” he said. “This is an example of government officials trying to pass the blame on the fact that their policies are leading people to not get vaccinated after all of this, steps that had been encouraging them, and promising them the life they are now pulling away from them.”
