Glenn Beck used his radio program this morning to alarm his listeners about the possibility that ISIS may be bringing African migrants across the Southern border in order to spread Ebola throughout America.
Citing the fact that an Ebola outbreak in Central Africa has killed more than 1,400 people in recent months, Beck linked that to news that nearly 350 migrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo recently arrived in San Antonio, Texas, after being apprehended by the Border Patrol. Fears that these migrants could be infected with Ebola was recklessly spread on right-wing websites, and despite being repeatedly debunked, Beck worked to promulgate those fears on his radio show today.
“We all know how deadly Ebola is,” Beck said. “We all know that it’s ground zero in the Congo.”
“We should not dismiss the fact that ISIS was in the Congo recently doing something—we don’t know what—and here’s a group of 350 people from the Congo that found themselves able to get across our Southern border somehow or another,” he said. “They don’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak French, but they got onto a plane and they flew to Ecuador and they made it all the way through Mexico and across our border without speaking a word of the language? That’s odd.”
“If anyone thinks that ISIS just wouldn’t weaponize people, you’re out of your mind,” Beck warned. “We should be screening for Ebola and we have a problem on the border. This is a catastrophe of global significance just waiting to happen.”
While it is possible that ISIS might be plotting to use African immigrants to smuggle Ebola into the United States, is worth remembering that Beck spent weeks relentlessly whipping up similar fears during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, dedicating program after program over the course of several weeks to inducing panic, telling his audience not to listen to anything the government said, and warning that the spread of Ebola in America was going to lead to race riots.
Eventually, Beck’s hysteria culminated in one of his patented screaming meltdowns:
It is no small irony that Beck was furious in 2014 that nobody was willing to humble themselves and admit that they were wrong when he has not only refused to admit that all of the dire predictions he made about the Ebola outbreak at the time were false, but is now doing his best to whip up those same fears once again.
