As Coronavirus Becomes Global Pandemic, Rush Limbaugh And Sean Hannity Continue To Suspect Conspiracy

Ted Johnson
·3 min read

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President Donald Trump will address the country on the coronavirus on Wednesday night, on the same day that the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic, the stock market again tanked and cities and states began restricting major events.

But Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are still questioning whether the coronavirus coverage and response are overblown.

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Limbaugh told listeners that “there just is a gigantic cloud of suspicion hanging over all of this, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I have to put it in context of everything that I know has happened in the last four years,” Limbaugh told his listeners. “Finally something has come along that is accomplishing everything every enemy of Donald Trump, and us, has wanted to accomplish for the last four years.”

He said that “all of this panic is just not warranted.”

Limbaugh has compared the coronavirus to the common cold, and he said on his show that it was based on the number of cases. He said, “It’s also based on the kind of virus this is. Why do you think this is COVID-19? This is the 19th coronavirus! They’re not uncommon. Coronaviruses are respiratory cold and flu viruses. There is nothing about this except where it came from and the itinerant media panic. You can’t blame people reacting the way they’re reacting if they pay any — even scant — attention to the media.”

On his radio show,Hannity cited a comment from an “MIT guy on Twitter” who said that “coronavirus fear-mongering by the deep state will go down in history as one of the biggest frauds to manipulate economies, suppress dissent and push mandated medicines.”

“It may get worse before it gets better, but ultimately I am confident in the people that we have,” Hannity said.

For weeks, Hannity, Limbaugh and other talk hosts from the right have accused the media of hyping the coronavirus or using it as a means to hurt Trump. On Monday night, Fox Business host Trish Regan devoted a segment to what she called the “Coronavirus impeachment scam,” and accused the media of overhyping the outbreak.

David Frum, a conservative critic of Trump’s, wrote on Twitter, “Lying to your listeners ceases to be a viable business model at the point where the lies start killing the listeners. The liar may not care, but the advertisers will notice.”

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