Fox Business host calls COVID-19 Thanksgiving guidelines “separation of families”

Charles Payne criticizing a hypothetical police order: “The notion that you're going to come to my house and count how many people are there, that is separation of families”

Video file

Citation From the November 17, 2020, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Ultimately Charles, this is unlike any holiday season we've ever lived through, with a pandemic. When they start to quantify it by saying OK 10 people, 15 people, 20 people, whatever, that's one thing. But then to -- I think the average person takes the personal responsibility, you know what the risks are, do the right thing.

CHARLES PAYNE (FOX BUSINESS HOST): One of the big, overarching stories with all of this has been the isolation story. The separation of families, and how important a role that is. The mental fatigue --

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Politicians don't care. They don't care.

PAYNE: I know personally what's happened, that this is the day, this Thanksgiving is when we need each other more than ever before. And the notion that you're going to come to my house and count how many people are there, that is separation of families. And it's the most important day of the year, I think, outside of Christmas and -- this time it means so much more. We have been separated. We've been forced apart.

You know, when this pandemic started, I tried to be a good citizen, right? I read children's books to my granddaughter through a glass door. I finally said, I'm not doing this. I brought all my grandkids over, we got a bouncy house, and we're living our life. And I tell you because I had a personal situation, I don't want to tell my whole life story here, but something that was the toughest, toughest thing I ever went through personally as a human being and as a father. And I just, I just tell you this isolation thing is devastating. It's devastating. And they better rethink it. They better rethink it. 

KILMEADE: But they haven't, Charles. It's eight months later and they're doing the same drill again, and they want us to go along like lemmings. This has got to stop.

PAYNE: It's got to stop. It's -- I think people are going to revolt, not --

KILMEADE: Absolutely.

PAYNE: Not a in-your-face revolt, but you know what, if you've got 15 people coming over, they're coming over, period. And if you want to take someone to jail for that --

KILMEADE: Go ahead.

PAYNE: That's on you.

KILMEADE: While you're defunding the police, you're asking to knock down doors in residence because they invited an extra aunt over, and they take them out in cuffs. Good luck with that.