[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 121 (Monday, July 12, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4810-S4811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, today is the first day of what could be 
a productive and maybe even historic few weeks in the Senate. I hope we 
can live up to the challenges we are facing.
  July 6 was a historic day in my home State of Illinois. For the first 
time in 476 days, Illinois went 24 hours without losing a life to 
COVID-19. During the deadliest days of this pandemic, Illinois was 
losing more than 150 people a day to COVID. As our Governor, JB 
Pritzker, said on the 6th, ``The vaccines have done the work. Thank God 
for the vaccines.'' I couldn't have said it better.
  Seventy percent of eligible Illinois residents have received at least 
one dose of those lifesaving COVID vaccines, including 90 percent of 
seniors. But we are at a critical moment in Illinois and across our 
Nation. With the new, more dangerous Delta variant now spreading 
rapidly across the Nation, people who are unvaccinated are at greater 
risk than ever of becoming sick and even facing death from COVID. I 
hope we can stop the division and disinformation and figure out how to 
protect the people from this deadly foe.
  I want to say a word about an issue I read this morning in an article 
in the New York Times. The author of the article, Tiffany Hsu, titled 
the article ``Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric Creeps From Fringe to Fox Prime 
Time.'' It is a lengthy article, and I commend it to everyone to read 
it on their own. It raises some important questions.
  If our sacred right to free speech can be limited by the time-honored 
test of crying ``fire'' in a crowded theater, is there any limit to 
extreme political rhetoric in the midst of a pandemic?
  We know the Republican Party is enthralled by Donald Trump. They have 
bought the Big Lie. A half to two-thirds of Republicans believe that he 
actually won the last election, and he didn't. Twenty-nine percent of 
Republicans believe that Donald Trump will be reinstated as President, 
triumphantly returning from exile to take over the White House again. 
Many of them believe that he will return to Washington soon.
  Well, there was an interesting scene on the grounds of the Capitol 
when I

[[Page S4811]]

returned today from Illinois. For the first time since January 6, the 
fence that was erected to hold back the insurrectionist mob was 
removed. We hope that we are prepared now to protect this Capitol and 
can get back to business as usual, but we have to recruit additional 
Capitol Hill Police to be prepared, we have to work with the National 
Guard units to be prepared, and we have to realize the obvious. There 
was a decision made on the floor of the U.S. Senate by the Republican 
Senate leader just a few weeks ago to stop any bipartisan effort to 
establish a Commission to ask what happened on January 6 and how it can 
be avoided in the future. Senator McConnell objected to a bipartisan, 
evenly-split Commission to investigate that terrible day. The GOP 
Senate leader killed that idea several weeks ago
  I want to commend Speaker Pelosi, who is trying her best through a 
special committee in the House of Representatives to have a bipartisan 
investigation. It should have been done through this Commission. 
Senator McConnell stopped it.
  There is one other element I would like to raise when it comes to 
free speech in the time of pandemic. What caught my eye in this 
morning's paper, as I mentioned earlier, was this article about FOX 
Primetime. They recounted the fact that over the last several months, 
FOX had been losing ground to CNN, and questioning the effectiveness of 
the COVID-19 vaccines became a split decision at the FOX network.
  Some of the leaders at FOX obviously believe strongly in the vaccine, 
and I commend them. I do too. Rupert Murdoch was vaccinated in 
December.
  When a list of those who supported the effort to encourage the use of 
vaccines across America was taken at FOX, they put together a 30-second 
spot featuring host and anchor Steve Doocy, Harris Faulkner, Dana 
Perino, and John Roberts. Ms. Faulkner said in that ad by FOX: ``If you 
can, get the vaccine.'' Bret Baier, chief political anchor at FOX News, 
said in an Instagram post that he was grateful for the shot of vaccine. 
The hosts of ``FOX & Friends'' spoke of the relief they felt in 
becoming vaccinated. Sean Hannity himself said:

       I do believe in science, and I believe in vaccinations. 
     Talk to your doctor. You don't need to talk to people on TV 
     and radio that aren't doctors.

  Which goes to the point of this message. There are two hosts of 
programs on FOX Primetime who can only be characterized as anti-vax 
quacks. I am referring, of course, to Tucker Carlson and Laura 
Ingraham. They have been spreading what I consider to be irresponsible 
information about vaccines across America and about the effort of this 
Nation to deal with them.
  Here is the reality. We have millions who have died across the world 
from this virus. We may never have an accurate count. We have hundreds 
of thousands who have died in the United States. Now it is said 
repeatedly that those who are headed to the hospital with the most 
serious strains of COVID-19--99.5 percent of them were not vaccinated. 
So the facts are obvious here.
  I know it is an individual decision on whether to be vaccinated, and 
I am sure there may be some Senators who have decided not to do it, but 
I was happy to do it as soon as I could. I think the vaccines are 
protecting me and my wife and my family. But in the meantime, to have 
these hosts of TV shows at FOX, in prime time, peddling this nonsense 
about vaccines being unnecessary and COVID-19 being no threat can only 
be summarized in a statement which concluded this article:

       In a recent opinion essay for The Daily Beast by Preston 
     Padden, a former high-level executive at Fox Broadcasting 
     wrote that Fox News had ``contributed substantially and 
     directly'' to ``the unnecessary deaths of many Americans by 
     fueling hesitation and doubt about the efficacy and safety of 
     lifesaving Covid-19 vaccines.'' He singled out the channel's 
     prime-time opinion programs for blame.

  I want to commend those at FOX who have stood up and said the right 
thing about these vaccines, but I also want to take issue with those 
who are using this vaccine, for whatever purpose, to mislead and 
confuse American people about its necessity, its effectiveness, and its 
safety. They are not doing America any favors, and I hope that FOX will 
come to its senses.
  If there are things that can remove you from the air for being said 
on a program, I certainly hope that the management of the station will 
caution Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham for the statements they have 
made in opposition to vaccines.