Conservative talk show hosts, Diamond and Silk, have alleged that the numbers of the infected and the dead from the coronavirus have been exaggerated to make Donald Trump look incompetent.
The pair, who are hosts on Fox Nation, a Fox News spinoff streaming channel, implied on Monday that their viewers need to treat the official numbers with contempt.
“In a matter of two weeks, over 1,000 people supposedly died from the coronavirus (in the US). In a two weeks time period, over 1,000 people — after being tested positive — have died from the coronavirus,” said Silk, whose real name is Rochelle Richardson.
“Here’s another thing. My president said, on March the 24th — Tuesday, this past week — my president said that he would love for America to be back up and running…At the time, he said it there was 25,489 cases with 307 deaths,” Silk continued. “Instantaneously, you had the media calling President Trump out. He want it open by Easter. He want this open by Easter. Me and you was talking — I said, ‘Now watch the number of deaths go up. Watch everything increase, because they wanted to make it look bad in front of our eyes.’ Here it is, five days later. As of yesterday, it jumped from 25,489 cases up to 121,478 cases. It went from 307 deaths to 2,026 deaths in five days,” Silk continued.
To which Diamond, real name Lynette Hardaway, responded, “Right”. But the attempted political spin on the crisis in the United States should be baffling to many. Even the Trump administration has not moved to dispute the figures.
America’s records are taken by the nonpartisan Center for Disease Control (CDC). And currently, the country has the worst infection rate in the world, with nearly 200,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths.
Diamond and Silk have made a name for themselves over the course of Trump’s campaign and administration starting off as YouTube sensations among conservatives.
Their success has been attributed to the shock value of their opinions as an African-American pair.
