Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade Falsely Claims ‘No-one’s Experienced a Pandemic Before’

Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade wrongly claimed on Monday that nobody had experienced a pandemic before the present Covid-19 outbreak. Kilmeade made the claim on Fox & Friends as part of an apparent defense of President Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis.

“We are now on day 8 into the President’s 15 days to stop the spread,” co-host Steve Doocy said.

“And just as the President and the administration and all of our health authorities are saying stay apart. That is what we are doing. We are at different locations closer to our home because right now 5% of the world’s cases are centered in New York.”

“Yeah, and Steve, so far, and Ainsley, the President started out with this and of course no-one’s experienced a pandemic before,” Kilmeade said.

“But it started out, a lot of people thought a little bit slow. No-one really knew this was gonna be as bad as it is right now it.”

Both these statements are untrue. There have been several pandemics in Kilmeade’s lifetime, a prominent recent example being the H1N1 virus. The extent of damage done by Covid-19 was also predicted by experts weeks ago, but the Trump administration did not act on that information.

Kilmeade went on to praise the President’s approval numbers.

“Seems as though the one thing that’s going up pretty consistently despite the media questions we get every day, as the President spoke for 90 minutes in a press conference. Harris poll said 60% of the country approve of the president’s handling of this virus.”

Watch the video above, via Fox News.