Ed Henry, Fox News’ “chief national correspondent,” blatantly lied when he said on the air that “miles and miles” of new border wall are being built. They are not. But that didn’t stop the Trump campaign from tweeting Henry’s lie as truth.
Media Matters explains:
On September 19, Henry talked to the Fox & Friends co-hosts about his trip to the border wall, where he interviewed Trump. He reported that his visit was “fantastic” and chided the Democrats who appear on the show and say “the president is not telling the truth” when Trump says there’s new wall being built. Henry continued, “I’m here to say the president is right and they are wrong, and that’s not an opinion, that’s from my reporting with my own two eyes. … There is, in fact, miles and miles of new wall being built.”
Not so. This is a Trump lie that Henry shamelessly reiterated. PolitiFact wrote on August 30, 2019:
Before Trump became president, 654 miles of the nearly 2,000-mile U.S. Mexico border had primary barriers. As of today, that hasn’t increased.
To date, the administration has replaced about 60 miles of dilapidated barriers with new fencing. And a major component of Trump’s pledge — that Mexico would pay for the wall — hasn’t been part of the equation. U.S. taxpayers have paid the cost.
As Media Matters also noted, the Trump campaign amplified the lie:
Wow! Report from Fox News confirms Democrats are WRONG:
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 19, 2019
"I was there...there is, in fact, miles and miles of new wall being built. And it’s working." pic.twitter.com/OFAYs1R1R4
Funny, Henry didn’t ask Trump why Mexico isn’t paying for the wall.
Henry issued a lengthy statement to Mediaite defending his claim by saying, basically, that the replacement of the existing fencing makes it new. But as Mediaite's Aidan McLaughlin noted, "Trump’s campaign promise, it shouldn’t have to be pointed out, was to build new miles of wall on the southern border — not 'renovate' existing walls and fences."
Watch “straight news correspondent” Henry lie to viewers below, from the September 19, 2019 Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.
Crowd: “Renovate that wall! Renovate that wall!”
Trump: “And who’s going to pay for it?”
Crowd: “We are! We are! We are!”
In fact, Hemmer actually cut Henry off for mentioning a mild point countering all the sycophantic anti-whistle blower propaganda TrumpTV™ has been pimping all morning.
The truth is that they haven’t been able to do anything other than reinforce existing sections of fencing, which is something that is normally done. The huge concrete wall and moat idea is one that has been repeatedly and appropriately blocked by sane judges, and even the attempts to illegally seize funding from other parts of the government have been held up. So when the 2020 election happens, it is more likely than not that Pence will have been unable to see even a single inch of this “big, beautiful wall” built.
Angry Right Wingers have also tried to parse the notion of how “Mexico is going to pay for it”, saying that this would be done in the form of vicious tariffs, or in other indirect notions. But none of those things have happened.
In reality, this is simply another expression of Right Wing blind anger toward everyone that is not of their small group. It is truly sobering to think that in 2019 we are still having a discussion about American bigotry being this prevalent.
