President Joe Biden made fun of Fox News hosts, saying that it is welcome news that they have had an “altar call” on COVID-19 vaccine coverage and urging its viewers to get inoculated, during the town hall meeting hosted by CNN.
“One of those other networks — they’re not a big fan of mine, one you talk about a lot — but if you notice, as they say in the southern part of my state, they’ve had an altar call, some of those guys,” Biden, said during a town hall session Wednesday night.
“All of a sudden, they’re out there saying, ‘Let’s get vaccinated, let’s get vaccinated.’ The very people before this were saying — I shouldn’t make fun of it, that’s good. It’s good,” Biden added. “You just have to keep telling your truth.”
The president, however, did not mention a name of a specific Fox news host, though Sean Hannity has recently told viewers to consider getting vaccinated.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a Tuesday briefing that the administration has been talking to Fox News and other networks about their coverage of the pandemic while trying to encourage vaccination across the country.
“We’ve been in touch with every network and many, many media outlets about coverage of COVID-19 to make sure people have accurate information, to voice concerns when we have them, and I think you all know we’re never shy when we have an issue with a story,” Psaki said Tuesday.
During the town hall, Biden also talked about his comments last Friday criticizing Facebook for failing to control the COVID-19 misinformation. He then claimed that social media is “killing people” by not effectively removing misinformation relating to COVID-19.
“You may have heard that I was critical of some of the things that are on Facebook and that I was attacking Facebook. I wasn’t attacking Facebook,” Biden said.
