Fox News contradicted President-elect Donald Trump’s statement that Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the terror suspect in the New Year’s vehicular attack in New Orleans, was a “criminal coming in” to the country.
While reporting on the attack Wednesday, a Fox News White House correspondent says over video edits of Trump: “To be clear, Molly and Brian, the suspect was born in the United States. He served in the United States Army. He was a veteran.”
Earlier, Trump called the attack “pure evil” in a post on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.
“When 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. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump wrote. “Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department. The Trump Administration will fully support the city of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!”
Video clips of the Fox News moment — as fact-checking the president-elect is increasingly a rarity on the conservative news network — soon circulated online. Watch it below:
The FBI has since confirmed that Jabbar was born in the United States, was a U.S. citizen who lived in Texas and had served in the U.S. Army Reserve. The agency has also confirmed that the flag on the truck driven by Jabbar appeared to be an ISIS banner.
While Trump and Fox News are usually in sync, the former “Apprentice” host slammed the network in October when they agreed to interview his rival, Kamala Harris, ahead of the 2024 election.
Trump wrote at the time that Fox “has totally lost its way” while lashing out at anchors Neil Cavuto, Eric Shawn and Arthel Neville. He claimed that Harris’ spokesperson, Ian Sams, “virtually owns [Fox].”
He implied in a subsequent interview with Maria Bartiromo that he would be boycotting the network “because it all just averages out into NOTHING,” but has continued to make appearances before and after the election.
