Chuck Woolery Says He Never Called Coronavirus “A Hoax”
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“I never said that in the tweet,” maintained former game show host Chuck Woolery on Thursday. “I said that they were lying to us about it [COVID-19], and I mentioned a lot of different people.”
“But I was not so stupid as to think that it wasn’t real,” he continued. “I knew it was real, and I never said that it wasn’t real.”
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“It’s a dangerous virus, it really is. So is the flu.”
Woolery is correct. Not about the coronavirus being in the same danger class as the flu, but about the exact words he used to describe the furor surrounding the pandemic.
On July 12, the former game show host tweeted, “The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19 [sic]. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.”
Donald Trump retweeted that comment, which set off a firestorm and triggered questions from reporters to Trump as to whether the president was attacking his own health officials’ assertions about the virus.
On July 13, Woolery shared a less combative message on Twitter. It read: “To further clarify and add perspective, Covid-19 [sic] is real and it is here. My son tested positive for the virus, and I feel for of those suffering and especially for those who have lost loved ones.”
Shortly thereafter, Woolery deleted his Twitter account. His Twitter page has since been restored, but is now set to private. An archived version of the tweet about his son is, however, available here.
It’s unclear whether his son’s condition, the reactions to his original tweet or something else prompted Woolery or Twitter to originally remove his account.
What is clear is that Woolery is still strident in his conviction that, in his words, “We have been lied to over and over.” That was among the things he said in his return to his political podcast on Thursday.
“They’re trying to weaponize a pandemic,” he continued. “They” being the CDC, the media, Democrats and doctors. Woolery also included the nation’s most respected epidemiologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci on that list.
As evidence, Woolery on Thursday cited “two doctors” on Laura Ingrahm’s show. Woolery said that one physician was asked if masks work against COVID-19. “The short answer is no, they don’t,” said the doctor, according to Woolery. “It’s like putting up a chain link fence and trying to keep out mosquitoes.”
Woolery did not name the doctors or their qualifications.
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