During a livestream this Tuesday, right-wing activist and former CNN contributor Ed Martin acknowledged that some people may have drank toxic substances after President Trump’s press conference where he seemingly suggested “disinfectants” could be used to treat coronavirus. But according to Martin, it’s the media’s fault, not Trump’s.
“I want to explain to you this isn’t a ‘fake news is bad’ thing; this is a ‘fake news is actually hurting people.’ And there’s one level to hurting people when they say the president said you should ingest disinfectant, and therefore, some people tried it. That’s probably true,” Martin said. “But it’s not [that] the president said that; it’s the coverage of what the president said that makes people crazy.”
Martin went on to say that “fake news is really good at hurting Americans.”
“You have to fight through all the fake news to sources like this to understand what’s going on. And I’ll be clear, I’m not even saying Fox News is exempt. They’re part of the situation.”
In 2018, Martin was fired from CNN as a contributor after he made comments referring to some of the network’s contributors as “black racists.”