Wow. When this anti-mask, anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist got permanently suspended from Twitter, one Fox News host was there for him with the offer of cash in hand: Tucker Carlson.
Contrarian conservative commentator Alex Berenson was down on his luck—not only was his Reefer Madness-style book that claims a link between marijuana and violent mental illness nearly universally panned by scientists, he subsequently pivoted to building a career posting coronavirus misinformation on Twitter. Since the start of the pandemic, Berenson has become a right-wing celebrity and regular Fox News fixture on the basis of his falsified claims that the pandemic is exaggerated, mask mandates are useless, and that vaccines are far more dangerous than the virus. This weekend, one of his many tweets resulted in him getting banned from the platform. Damn!
Berenson was so bereft he even started posting from another Twitter account that was also promptly banned. He took to begging on his Substack for legal advice on whether Twitter was legally allowed to do that (it obviously can) and in another post mulled a lawsuit demanding the reinstatement of his account (such cases have always failed and will continue to).
Thank god Fox News host and white nationalist Tucker Carlson, himself a covid-19 vaccine truther, was on hand to help Berenson stand up to this pathetically overdue enforcement of Twitter rules against covid-19 disinformation injustice!
According to the Daily Beast, Berenson appeared on Carlson’s show on Monday night to complain about his ban, pretending he had no idea why he was banned but speculating it had to do with a tweet in which he claimed that coronavirus vaccines are “at best” a “therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile.” Despite every word of that being complete garbage, Berenson told the host that “every statement I made in the tweet was totally accurate and defensible” and “if it gets to a jury we will find out what a jury has to say about that.”
Berenson added he believes he has “a First Amendment claim in that Twitter is sort of a modern town square,” the Daily Beast wrote, and that the company “defamed me by saying my information is inaccurate.” He also plugged his Substack, which is $60 a year for annual members but encourages $300 a year for “Founding Member” status.
“I hope you sue the crap out of these totalitarians,” Carlson responded. “I hope you do, and if you do, I hope you come back and tell us how to buy popcorn and watch.”
After Berenson claimed that many people “want to be a part of this and fund the lawsuit,” Carlson suggested he could open up his own wallet: “I want to fund it. I do. I mean that.” Berenson demurred, saying he’d rather someone who is rich pay for it.
Wow! Inspiring. You can’t fake this kind of generosity, folks. Let’s all slow clap for Alex, Tucker, and the novel coronavirus as they walk down the aisle of friendship (absent, of course, the estimated 4.5 million+ people are dead worldwide due to the pandemic, including 637,000 in the U.S. alone, many of whom would likely be alive today if they’d received one of the coronavirus vaccines Berenson keeps trying to scare people about).