Fox News has egg on its face for spending days pushing a ridiculous story about Vice President Kamala Harris.
The lie -- which began at Rupert Murdoch's tabloid, the New York Post, before spreading to his broadcast network -- said that taxpayers were purchasing a copy of a children's book written by the vice president to give to migrant children applying for asylum.
Of course, the lie was spread by Republicans like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).
The Biden administration's weakness caused a surge of illegal immigration. Now they're forcing taxpayers to buy K… https://t.co/DwobJKOZYJ— Tom Cotton (@Tom Cotton) 1619384217.0
Surprising few, the story turned out to be entirely false, as CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale noted.
The revised story notes that the one copy of the book was donated by a community member, and deletes the claim that… https://t.co/GHJBAiRh4r— Daniel Dale (@Daniel Dale) 1619552126.0
Dave Weigel of The Washington Post was mystified that Fox News picked up such an obviously ridiculous story.
"I'm sort of obsessed with this because it would have been *insane* had the feds bought a truckload of the VP's books to give to migrant children, your brain is swiss cheese if you believed this without checking," he noted.
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, Tammy Bruce, Greg Gutfeld, Martha MacCallum and the hosts of Outnumbered were among the network's staff who were suckered by the fake story.
Last night, Tucker Carlson said Joe Biden "has no active role in running the U.S. government," promised his show wo… https://t.co/Nndedl7JCZ— Matthew Gertz (@Matthew Gertz) 1619555439.0
GUTFLED! also did some "jokes" about the story. https://t.co/RdQd60beYk— Matthew Gertz (@Matthew Gertz) 1619555825.0
Plus Outnumbered https://t.co/1rpjkqlNCO— Matthew Gertz (@Matthew Gertz) 1619556371.0