Scott Jensen, GOP senator, family doctor, makes debut on Fox News’ ‘Ingraham Angle’

State Sen. Scott Jensen, the Republican family doctor from Chaska, made his debut appearance on Fox News’ “Ingraham Angle” to criticize recently issued CDC guidance on how to classify COVID-19 deaths. 

Jensen joins a chorus of Fox News personalities and contributors like Tucker Carlson and Brit Hume, who have begun arguing that the country is over-counting COVID-19 deaths — claims flatly rejected by the top two medical experts on President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci.  

“You will always have conspiracy theories when you have a very challenging public health crisis. They are nothing but distractions,” Fauci said in comments that Laura Ingraham later played back for Jensen, asking him to react. 

Jensen scoffed, and said: “I would remind him that any time health care intersects with dollars, it gets awkward.”

He attributed financial motives to the directive, saying Medicare will pay hospitals based on the number of COVID-19 patients and treatment they receive. “Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine, that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do. 

Jensen told the Reformer he was invited to appear on Ingraham’s show after he began gaining attention for remarks he made on Point of View with Chris Berg, a Fargo news and opinion program. He pushed back on the CDC-issued guidance, shared by the Minnesota Department of Health with medical certifiers, along with other resources. 

When Berg asked Jensen why health officials would “skew” death figures, he responded. “Well, fear is a great way to control people.”

Those comments have also found their way to InfoWars, the site founded by Alex Jones, a known conspiracy theorist who has called the Sandy Hook shooting of 26 people, including 20 school children, a hoax. InfoWars wrote about Jensen’s claims with a headline that read: “Official raises alarm on inflated COVID-19 deaths.”

A message seeking comment from the Minnesota Department of Health spokesman was not immediately returned Thursday, but MDH officials are expected to address this issue during its daily 2 p.m. briefing.