CNBC anchor Becky Quick sent House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy into a spasmodic word salad that ended in awkward silence after she asked a simple question about McCarthy’s lengthy rant about Covid and vaccine mandates.
It was a rough morning for McCarthy, who got fact-checked in mid-interview by Andrew Ross Sorkin, then was calmly destroyed by Quick, as he tried to defend his much-derided weekend tweet that read “NO VACCINE MANDATES.”
McCarthy threw up a lot of talking points in defense of his stance, including that “I don’t believe in a punishment method to get somebody to do it because they’ll create more doubt. If you remove information from the Internet where they can’t have all the information. If you say you’re vaccinated, you still have to wear a mask, even though the science doesn’t say it behind it.”
Sorkin interjected to correct McCarthy, telling him “Just one point of fact. In certain circumstances, even if you’re vaccinated, wearing a mask is actually the right thing to do, especially around unvaccinated people, if, in fact, you will then be encountering people who are not vaccinated.”
Later in the interview, McCarthy repeated his other claim, saying that “the process here is, what the government is doing, is taking more information away, not providing it.”
Quick then zeroed in on McCarthy, calmly asking him “Leader McCarthy,
McCarthy plowed ahead with a non-answer, telling Quick “Well, I watched, time, and again… I would sit down and I would allow individuals to have all the information,” to which Quick interjected, “Information is one thing, misinformation is another.”
McCarthy continued: “…because I think that the information that is provided… When Gottlieb is on your show. I love to sit back and just talk about it, do a question and answer time instead of sit down and say you’ve got to do it one way or the other, because if you are sitting in America today and you are not vaccinated, you’ve got some doubts. So why don’t you let them ask a question and answer the question?”
“I think we’ve had months of that, though. I mean, these vaccines were rolled that last year,” Quick replied.
McCarthy responded “Yeah,” followed by a lengthy, awkward silence.
Watch above via CNBC.