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While Donald Trump works to destroy the FBI and the Department of Justice, he and his MAGA pals relied without question on Fox \u201cNews\u201d false reporting on yesterday\u2019s terrorist attack in New Orleans. It’s a frightening portent of what may be coming.<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the deadly truck attack on New Year\u2019s revelers in New Orleans early Wednesday morning, Fox News wrongly reported that the suspect had entered the U.S. from Mexico two days before.<\/p>\n
Media Matters\u2019 Matt Gertz explains what happened<\/a>:<\/p>\n At around 3:15 a.m., the driver of a pickup truck\u00a0<\/span>sped through a crowd<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>of revelers on New Orleans\u2019 Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more before being killed in a shoot-out with police. The driver was later identified as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran born and raised in Texas who\u00a0<\/span>claimed<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>to have joined ISIS.<\/p>\n But at 10:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday \u2014 before authorities had confirmed the suspect\u2019s name \u2014 Fox aired an anonymously-sourced bombshell report claiming that he had crossed the border from Mexico earlier that week.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to federal sources, the suspect drove a truck with that Texas license plate, OK \u2014 so this is just coming into our newsroom now. This is from Griff Jenkins and David Spunt working their federal sources on this,\u201d anchor Molly Line said. \u201cAccording to their sources, this person came through Eagle Pass, Texas, two days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n It’s not clear which \u201cfederal sources\u201d Jenkins and Spunt were working but I would bet they immediately went to sources at or with knowledge of the Texas border in the hope of finding that an immigrant had committed the violence. Border Czar-To-Be Who Can\u2019t Wait To Put Children In \u201cHalfway Houses,\u201d<\/a> and former Fox contributor<\/a> Tom Homan, anyone? He could have been very helpful with contact information in between his Fox<\/a> News<\/a> hits<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whatever sources Jenkins and Spunt \u201cworked,\u201d the info was wrong. It turned out<\/a> that the truck had crossed the border in November, driven by somebody else, and that perpetrator Jabbar had rented the truck on December 30. Jabbar was a Texas-born U.S. citizen and an Army veteran<\/a> who served in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n Media Matters<\/a> has the deets on how Fox began walking back its false reporting.<\/p>\n But Donald Trump, the guy who claims he’s uniquely equipped to lead the biggest, most powerful country in the world, didn\u2019t bother to check any further sources, it seems. He didn\u2019t even wait for more details from Fox News. Eight minutes<\/a> after Fox\u2019s first, erroneous report, he began using the fake news to boast about himself and to fear monger and demonize immigrants.<\/p>\n More from Media Matters<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,\u201d he\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0to his Truth Social platform at 10:48 a.m. \u201cThe crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n A few hours after that, as more information about the suspect came out, Spunt ended up in the curious position of correcting the false Trump claim that his own reporting had seemingly spurred. Spunt\u00a0read<\/a>\u00a0the Truth Social statement during the 4 p.m. ET hour and commented, \u201cNow, the former president said \u2018criminals coming in\u2019 in his statement, meaning into our country, but to be clear, Molly and Brian, the suspect was born in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n The correction did nothing to deter Trump, who\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0overnight that \u201cthis is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS\u201d and blamed Democrats \u201cfor allowing this to happen to our Country.\u201d<\/p>\n CNN\u2019s Brian Stelter<\/a> noted more of the damage done:<\/p>\n Some of Trump\u2019s family members and political allies also immediately connected the attack to illegal immigration and cited Fox.<\/p>\n \u201cBiden\u2019s parting gift to America \u2014 migrant terrorists,\u201d Donald Trump Jr. wrote, sharing the Fox claim on X. \u201cShut the border down!!!\u201d Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene exclaimed.<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n References to Eagle Pass continued to spread across social media. Fox continued to stream a clip on its website of the incorrect information. \u201cSome Republicans continued to beat the border drum well after Fox News retracted its initial report,\u201d The Daily Beast\u2019s Josh Fiallo\u00a0reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gertz correctly points out that this is a return to what he calls the Trump-Fox feedback loop that characterized his first term in office. In November, Gertz wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible to overstate how ridiculous \u2014 or dangerous \u2014 this Fox-Trump pipeline could be. At one point, after a Fox contributor\u00a0turned to the camera<\/a>\u00a0and urged Trump to renounce his support for a bill, the president appeared to do so on Twitter, causing chaos on Capitol Hill. Later in his term, Trump\u00a0put the full force<\/a>\u00a0of government behind a purported coronavirus \u201cmiracle cure\u201d that he had seen touted on Fox but proved ineffective against the virus.<\/p>\n What makes this especially alarming now is that Trump and his billionaire handlers are planning to take a wrecking ball to our federal government. That includes the FBI<\/a>, the Department of Justice<\/a>, our national intelligence<\/a> and our public health systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n In other words, Fox News will give new meaning to the term \u201cstate news.” I’d like to hope that the network, realizing its outsized role in a Musk\/Trump\/Vance administration, would take extra care in its reporting. But there is absolutely nothing to suggest that will happen.<\/p>\n You can watch Fox announce the false, but almost certainly sought-after, \u201cnews\u201d that the New Orleans suspect entered the country from Mexico two days before the attack below, from Fox\u2019s live coverage on January 1, 2025, via Media Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n (Top image via screen grab<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n