“Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade ran straight to racism on Monday morning as he expressed outrage over President Joe Biden’s broad COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Zeroing in on Biden’s warning last week that “our patience is wearing thin” with those who refuse to get vaccinated, Kilmeade complained that the President hadn’t criticized the lag in vaccination rates among Black Americans.
“Why doesn’t the President call out African-Americans who put him in office and yell at them to get the shot?” the Fox anchor asked.
Kilmeade isn’t the first conservative to invoke racist “whataboutism” regarding Black people and the vaccine amid well–documented vaccine hesitancy among Republicans (who are four times more likely to be unvaccinated than Black Americans).
As he was falsely accusing Black people of having the highest COVID-19 case rate last month, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) claimed that because Black people tend to vote for Democrats, “it’s up to the Democrats to get […] as many people vaccinated.”
And Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) blamed low vaccination rates on “a very large African American population” in his state in April.
Watch Kilmeade below:
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade says Biden should "yell at" Black Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine. pic.twitter.com/pEFXkGFDJV
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 13, 2021
