Rep. Mark Meadows joined the Fox & Friends government shutdown chorus this morning and lied through his teeth as he claimed that shutting down the government to fund the border wall is what “the American people” want.

Meadows (R-NC) was part of this morning's ultimately successful Fox lobbying campaign to prod Fan-in-Chief Donald Trump into refusing to sign the stopgap funding bill that passed the Senate last night. Meadows pretended to be speaking to host Ed Henry but we all know whom he was really addressing as he massaged Trump’s ego and blamed others for not blindly insisting on funds for the wall (we were promised Mexico would pay for).

“The vast majority of your viewers and the American people” want Trump to refuse to sign the bill, Meadows told Henry. “And it’s not that he’s gutless, they believe that he’s getting bad advice, they know that he’s promised not once, not twice, but three different times that he would get border wall funding.”

Meadows further claimed that people are “very nervous” that Trump might not shut down the government to get a wall.

FACT CHECK: According to a very recent Quinnipiac University poll, American voters oppose building a wall on the Mexican border, believe it is not necessary to improve border security and by an even wider margin, oppose shutting down the government over it.

But instead of making sure viewers knew the truth, Henry – whose job description at Fox is “chief national correspondent” – feigned objectivity by challenging Meadows for not getting the wall built sooner. Noting Republicans had both houses of Congress, Henry asked, “What did you do for the last two years?”

That gave Meadows an opportunity to blame Congress and stroke Trump a bit more. “We fumbled, and I can tell you the president was exactly right on this,” Meadows said.

“Many in the mainstream media are going to beat on the president throughout the holidays and say that he’s mean, he’s nasty, he’s shutting down the government,” Henry commented, thereby telegraphing Fox’s support.

Meadows clearly didn't care about any Americans losing a paycheck, not being able to access government services or even a national park. “The vast majority of the government will remain open,” he said. “If we’re not going to fight now, when are we going to fight? … Now’s the time to fight.”

Ed called Meadows’ words, “a strong message for the president this morning.”

Watch Meadows and Henry show their contempt for Americans below, from the December 20, 2018 Fox & Friends.