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CNN’s chief national correspondent John King showed a level of passion — and even anger — unusual for his typically stoic mien when he called out “reckless” lies about Covid-19 vaccines on Fox News, particularly following the death of former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

King announced live on air Tuesday that he is immunocompromised as he has long suffered from multiple sclerosis. He then expressed appreciation for all those who have gotten vaccinated:

It’s a shared responsibility. If I can do something to help protect somebody else. I’m going to share a secret I’ve never spoken to before — I’m immunocompromised. I have multiple sclerosis. So, I’m grateful you’re all vaccinated. I’m grateful my employer says that all these amazing people who work on the floor who came in here for the last 18 months when we were doing this are vaccinated now that we have vaccines.

Appearing on New Day, King reiterated the importance of getting the vaccine and other mitigation efforts to abate the spread of Covid-19. Anchor John Berman then noted “I can hear it in your voice … I’ve known you since you were the AP reporter and strictly covered the news. This is different. I can tell this is getting to you. It was specifically, I think, the coverage of the death of Colin Powell over at Fox that ticked you off.”

“It is a cumulative thing,” King

replied. “Colin Powell is a treasure; we lost a hero. For people to say, this is proof that vaccines don’t work because Colin Powell was vaccinated when just the opposite is true. Just the opposite is true.”

To be clear, no one on Fox News explicitly said that Powell’s death is proof that vaccines don’t work — though Tucker Carlson suggested it when he said, “you’ve been lied to. Vaccines may be highly useful for some people, but across a population, they do not solve Covid. That’s not speculation; it is an observable fact.” Many on Fox, like Will Cain, explicitly raised specious questions —with knowable answers — about vaccines that will effectively undermine many viewers’ belief in its efficacy.

“Colin Powell was vaccinated, but he had a condition that compromised his immune system, as I do, because of the medications I take; the medications that help me remarkably,” King continued. “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he continued, before addressing Berman: “We’ve known each other a long time.” Then, like a proper journalist, lamented the fact that he was inserting himself into the story. “I don’t like injecting myself into this; it’s not my way, it is not my place.”

“I get politics, I get the polarization,” he continued. “But this — we’re

getting to the point whereby Thanksgiving dinner, the population of Denver will have been wiped out by Covid. Is that not big enough to startle us to say let’s put the politics aside and debate the big questions but debate them on facts? The world is round. Trump lost. Vaccines work. These are the debates; the climate is in crisis. Have debates within the context of that. These things are not in dispute. Some people want to put them in dispute for reasons I do not understand.”

He then explained what put him over the edge. “What crossed the line for me was lying about an American hero when those 728,000 people who we have already lost, they’re all heroes to somebody too.”

“And to lie about vaccines and make it worse, today and tomorrow, based on all we now know? It’s just reckless, and it pushed me across the line,” King concluded.

Worth noting that King also went out of his way to wish well on Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto, who also suffers from MS, and announced yesterday that he had Covid-19. From the Reliable Sources newsletter:

King described Cavuto to me as one of his “heroes” and a “warrior.” He said that Cavuto is someone he watches and admires. “I would just hope that everybody would remember Neil Cavuto, or a stranger on a bus or in a coffee

shop, might be in a similar situation,” King said. “And there are things you can do to protect them.

King is a mild-mannered and remarkably reliable news anchor. So to go so far as to anger him to the degree that he needs to say something is, well, something.

Watch above via CNN.