The Fox News pundit who once said he doesn't wash his hands is encouraging patriots to risk COVID-19, which has killed more than 76,000 people in America and infected 1.23 million more.
Mocking "experts" and complaining about misinformation, Pete Hegseth told viewers to put "freedom before fear" Thursday in a segment praising anti-lockdown protesters in Texas and endorsing herd immunity to conquer the pandemic.
"There's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of misinformation, the 'experts,' have been telling us hundreds of thousands of people are going to die," he ranted from a safe, indoor location. "Now that we're learning more, herd immunity is our friend, healthy people getting out there, they're going to have to have some courage.
Herd immunity so far appears to be meeting with some success in Sweden, where COVID-19 has killed 3,040 and a quarantine has not been implemented. Coronavirus has infected nearly 3.8 million people worldwide. Sweden's foreign minister said Tuesday "we don't have a strategy of herd immunity," but that the country wasn't intent on stopping all transmission.
Sweden's total cases and deaths are much higher than neighbors Norway and Finland.
Hegseth then praised protests like the one that took place in Austin, Texas, last month, where right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones shouted into a bullhorn about a "made-up virus" while shaking hands with like-minded activists.
"We've seen courage ... in Texas, where people are defying ridiculous orders, that takes courage, that's not easy," Hegseth said. "That spirit, the American spirit frankly, is in full supply and ready to go."
Hegseth said in a February 2019 segment on Fox News that he hadn't washed his hands in a decade. He later claimed he was being sarcastic.
Fox News has been frequently criticized for its coverage of the pandemic, which has included several doctors going on air to make inaccurate claims or inflammatory statements that in some cases required apologies. Star host Sean Hannity, an ardent supporter of the Trump administration, has described mainstream media coverage of the deadly pandemic a "hoax" meant to hurt Trump politically.
