Tucker Carlson Rails Against Employee Vaccine Mandates After Firings

Fox News host Tucker Carlson urged his viewers to resist vaccine mandates if they are imposed by their employers as he questioned such rules being set at workplaces across the United States.

Carlson told his audience on Friday they should "threaten to sue" if their employer tries to require them to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

On Friday, Carlson interviewed Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney and former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, about employers mandating vaccinations.

"This is a unique situation where the government is allowing private employers to fire people for the type of protected categories that would otherwise be respected in the law," Dhillon said.

"And you have to ask some questions about why it is that we're treating someone's vaccination status on an experimental vaccine differently than let's say pregnancy, or having herpes or some other type of communicable disease."

Following his conversation with Dhillon, Carlson went on describe a "moral panic" and called on his viewers to resist vaccine mandates.

"Obviously we're in the middle of a moral panic, driven by politicians who are dividing us for their own power," Carlson said.

"But if you face this, if your employer tries to force you to get medicine you don't need and threatens to fire you if you don't, our unsolicited advice is resist, threaten to sue, make a lot of noise, don't go along with it. You're an American. You don't have to."

Carlson's comments come as several major companies have begun requiring evidence of vaccination status.

CNN terminated three employees this week because they entered the office without being vaccinated, Reuters reported based upon a memo sent internally to staff.

CNN Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy also tweeted about the memo, sent by CNN President Jeff Zucker.

This read: "In the past week, we have been made aware of three employees who were coming to the office unvaccinated. All three have been terminated.

"Let me be clear - we have a zero-tolerance policy on this."

Carlson took particular issue with this decision on Friday and also questioned who the impacted staff were, as their identities have not as yet been disclosed.

Carlson said: "A few questions remain here. 'Who are these three employees who were fired from CNN? Clearly they're not CNN anchors."

He then made an apparent reference to CNN's Chris Cuomo, who contracted COVID-19 last year along with his wife.

"We know that one of CNN's primetime anchors exposed others to COVID when he was infected with it last winter—he's still there," Carlson said.

"Are they high-level people or are they more likely studio technicians, potentially African-American studio technicians? And how did CNN learn about their vaccination status? What else do they know about people's medical histories over there?"

Fox News itself has introduced a system where employees can voluntarily report their vaccine status. Fully vaccinated employees can avoid daily health screenings that are otherwise required, as well as bypassing mask-wearing and social distancing requirements.

Newsweek has asked Fox News and CNN for comment.