U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA-01) sparred last week with a CNN anchor who asked whether right-leaning news sites are “killing people.”
The CNN anchor in question, Kate Bolduan, specifically asked Carter about the COVID-19 vaccine.
“How much do you think right-wing news outlets that mislead the public on the vaccine, suggesting it may not be safe or that the government is weaponizing it to control people, is contributing to vaccine hesitancy?” Bolduan asked the Georgia congressman.
Bolduan later asked if “misinformation on right-wing media and social media sites is killing people?”
Carter said we live in a country where the First Amendment is our most important amendment.
“Yes, there is misinformation out there, and we need to make sure we get that cleared up. However, keep in mind, early on the big tech platforms were actually suppressing the idea, the possibility, of the origin of this vaccine. Now we know, not only is it possible, not only is it probable, but it did indeed originate in the virology labs in Wuhan,” Carter said.
Bolduan, quoting who she said were senior Biden administration officials, said no one knows the true origin of the virus and it’s just as likely an animal transmitted it to a human.
Carter, meanwhile, said misinformation “is in the eye of the beholder.”
The Georgia congressman also said the government should not mandate that people take the COVID-19 vaccine. To do so, he said, is “un-American.” Carter said people should take the vaccine voluntarily — and after they consult with their doctors and their families.
Carter, in May, co-signed a letter to the U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and demanded investigations into the Wuhan lab.
Carter, in a newsletter he emailed to constituents that month, said “China allowed this virus to spread and they need to be held accountable” and that “we need to fully understand what happened and make sure it never happens again.”
“In our letter to Speaker Pelosi we wrote, ‘we request that you instruct the appropriate Democrat committee chairs to immediately join Republican calls to hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for its role in causing the global COVID-19 pandemic,” Carter said at the time.
“There is mounting evidence the pandemic started in a Chinese lab, and the CCP covered it up. If that is the case, the CCP is responsible for the deaths of almost 600,000 Americans and millions more worldwide. These questions about the CCP’s liability are not a diversion, as you falsely claimed. To the contrary, every American family that lost someone deserves answers about the origin of this terrible virus, and House Democrats’ ongoing refusal to allocate investigative resources to get those answers is an affront to them.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
