‘It’s Time To Listen To The Facts’: Progressive Group's Ads Call Out Rush Limbaugh On Coronavirus
A progressive group plans to run ads during Rush Limbaugh’s radio show in 14 states, aiming to counter the popular ultra-conservative talk-show host’s misinformation about the severity of the coronavirus and his criticisms of government scientists.
“Fox News and their friends ― and I mean that broadly, not in reference to the program ― has turned a global pandemic into a litmus test about loyalty to Donald Trump,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, a chemist and former Democratic congressional candidate who leads the group 314 Action, which is focused on backing candidates with a background in science. Limbaugh, she said, is “endangering the lives of his own listeners.”
Limbaugh, along with other Trump-aligned conservative media figures, has repeatedly aired skepticism of the deadliness and seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now claimed nearly 11,000 American lives and has sent the country into an all-but-certain recession as millions of Americans stay home in an effort to limit the strain on the country’s health care system.
Limbaugh has said on his show that “this virus is the common cold” and claimed that “all of this panic is just not warranted.” He’s also suggested the number of deaths due to coronavirus is exaggerated and implied that government health experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health are part of the “deep state,” acting to undermine the Trump administration.
“The American people did not elect a bunch of health experts that we don’t know,” Limbaugh said in late March. “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know.”
In the minute-long radio ad, which is set to air in 14 states and Washington, D.C., starting on Tuesday, a narrator calls Limbaugh a “national disgrace” for attacking “Dr. Fauci and the other doctors and scientists who are trying to help save lives and stop the spread of...
