One of the top conservative pundits in the United States fanned the flames of conspiracy when he quoted a noted Qanon theorist on his radio show as fears over the novel coronavirus grow.
Fox News host Sean Hannity was speaking on his afternoon radio show Wednesday when he referenced Shiva Ayyadurai’s claim that the “deep state” is using the pandemic as a way to force medicine on people in the U.S. while causing a stock market panic.
“There’s an MIT guy I noticed on Twitter,” said Hannity of Ayyadurai. “He does research nearly every single day on immune systems. He said quote ‘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.’”
“May be true,” he added.
Hannity has been one of President Trump’s most outspoken defenders during his first-term, ramping up in recent days as markets tumble and people worry about the possibility of quarantine.
The pundit cited a Trump approval poll in Gateway Pundit, a right-wing media outlet known to traffic in conspiracy and hyperbole, that sits at stark odds with approval polls from leading pollsters RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight.
“Gateway Pundit points out that, as of yesterday, that the president’s approval rating is fine and he’s getting pretty good grades on everything else,” said Hannity.
Quinnipiac polling additionally found that Trump’s approval rating dropped from 43% in December to 41% as of early March.
Qanon is a network of conservative and anarchist activists who believe Trump is exposing a vast anti-American plot to stop the president and his supporters from wielding power in the U.S. Late last year, Trump retweeted several Qanon supporters who promoted the name of former CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella as the alleged Ukraine call whistleblower.
The novel strand of the COVID-19 virus has wreaked havoc on global economies as nations close borders and quarantine major urban sites in an effort to ward off the spread of the illness. As of Thursday, over 4,000 people have died and more than 120,000 have been infected worldwide.
