Fox Is So Rattled By Trump Military Story That It Confirms, Debunks, Then Reconfirms It
Fox News was so flustered by The Atlantic article on insults by President Donald Trump against military service members that it initially didn’t know where to land on the report.
It attacked the article, then eventually confirmed it. Then it bashed it again soon afterward — before reconfirming it.
Fox News’ national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin posted a long Twitter thread Friday afternoon confirming key points of the bombshell article that cited multiple reports of Trump denigrating fallen service members by saying they were “losers” and “suckers,” and details of the president’s refusal to visit the graves of America’s war dead at Aisne-Marne Cemetery while he was in France in 2018.
Griffin also tweeted that she discovered Trump once said it was “not a good look” to include “wounded guys” in a Fourth of July military parade.
Regarding Trump's July 4th military parade, during a planning session at the White House after seeing the Bastille Day parade in 2017, the President said regarding the inclusion of "wounded guys" "that's not a good look" "Americans don't like that," source confirms.
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 4, 2020
Two former sr Trump admin officials confirm .@JeffreyGoldberg reporting that President Trump disparaged veterans and did not want to drive to honor American war dead at Aisne-Marne Cemetery outside Paris.
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 4, 2020
According to one former senior Trump administration official: "When the President spoke about the Vietnam War, he said, 'It was a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker'."
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 4, 2020
I read the source a few quotes from The Atlantic article. This former Trump admin official said, "The President would say things like that. He doesn't know why people join the military. He would muse, 'Why do they do it'?"
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 4, 2020
After the media widely reported on Griffin’s tweets, declaring that Fox News had confirmed the report, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld on “The Five” bashed the “debunked” and “outrageous” report as a “scam” and a “hoax.” No one on the program cited the findings of their own Pentagon reporter.
But wait. Scratch that. An hour after that, Griffin appeared on Fox News to discuss the confirmation she had tweeted about.
And there it is. Fox News confirms the story that the White House has been denying all day. This thing's a done deal.pic.twitter.com/7kVY3vmAwB
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) September 4, 2020
Fox News hosts for much of the day also slammed The Atlantic’s use of anonymous sources, then used its own anonymous sources to debunk — and then confirm — the article.
Despite the waffling, by late Friday evening Fox News seemed to be sticking to its position that the Atlantic article was essentially true.
Fox News’ confirmation of the story is viewed by political observers as particularly harmful to Trump because the media outlet usually backs the president.
Trump has denied the accusations raised in The Atlantic.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.