A Fox guest declared a car explosion at the New York/Canada border was “exactly what” Iran has called for, then he and Fox personnel had to start walking it back.
The first video below, from Fox’s The Story, has anchor Trace Gallagher interviewing counterterrorism expert Aaron Cohen after the explosion, at 3:24 PM ET. After a lower-third banner read, “Source: NY Explosion An Attempted Terror Attack,” Cohen all but declared the U.S. under attack from Iran and Hezbollah.
COHEN: What I’m seeing here is exactly what Khamenei of Iran, the ayatollah, has been calling for over the last 40 days. Same thing with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. They’ve been calling for a systematic global jihad with everybody who stands with Hamas’ ideology.
Not surprised at this terror attack that’s gone public here.
After terrifying viewers with his assumption, Cohen got around to more or less admitting that he didn’t really know what happened. “Obviously, there’s still information that’s unfolding and there will be a pretty sophisticated investigation, which will be difficult because that car exploded,” he said. “It looks like it’s been burned to shreds.”
Then he got back to fear mongering.
COHEN: I don’t believe in coincidences. And I think this bridge could potentially be just the first piece of something larger.
Fox has been doing its best to push President Joe Biden into war with Iran since Israel went to war with Hamas. You could almost hear the sound of balloons popping as it turned out this incident was not going to be the golden propaganda opportunity both for war and to attack Biden that Foxies first thought.
Gallagher began the tap dance. Not that he pointed out Cohen had been needlessly alarming viewers, just that new information raised questions about what happened. Gallagher noted that the car was fleeing the U.S. “at a very high rate of speed,” headed toward Canada and “in some capacity, this thing either lost control or it deliberately went at a fence and it crashed and then exploded.”
“Now we told you earlier that there was an explosion because there were explosives inside the car,” Gallagher continued. “Now, authorities are apparently walking that back just a little bit, saying it’s unclear if there were explosives or how many explosives.” He asked Cohen if there was “a potential” that the car “had maybe few explosives or no explosives and still created this explosive event at the bridge?”
“I’m going to say yes, 100%,” Cohen said. But he quickly moved on to criticize the border personnel for allowing the car to approach at such a high rate of speed.
Gallagher tried to keep the fear alive as best he could given the new information. Cohen took the cue. But just in case the explosion itself wasn’t a cause to blame Biden, Cohen teed up a reason to criticize Biden on border security:
GALLAGHER: This thing was clearly either on a mission or somebody had an accident or somebody had some kind of health incident. We don’t really know exactly what happened but it appears as if the going at the entrance to the bridge was, at the very least, intentional.
COHEN: I believe it was intentional, Trace 100%. And the fact that the U.S. government, the FBI has already put this out as a terrorist attack means that there was intent. … Had that been Israel, had that been one of [Israel’s] checkpoints, highly-trained rounds would have been going into that vehicle before it could have picked up speed.
Actually, the terrorism treatment seems to have been precautionary more than determinative. Not that Gallagher brought that up.
I’m sure everybody in the U.S. worried that the explosion was a terrorist attack. But news networks are supposed to traffic in known facts, not deliberately frightening speculation. Especially on a show whose usual anchor, Martha MacCallum, Fox has said embodies “the ultimate journalistic integrity and professionalism.”
Nevertheless, Gallagher gave Cohen a stamp of approval at the end of the segment, calling him “the best of the best.” Which is not to say he isn't but Gallagher is supposed to be there to ground the guest in facts, which Gallagher barely did.
About 40 minutes later, at the top of the next show, Your World, correspondent Alexis McAdams revealed that the explosion probably wasn’t a terrorist attack at all. But she bent over backwards to (falsely) suggest that the Fox fear mongering had been deserved.
McAdams began by saying that despite “police sources” being “very confident” that the car was a terrorist attack, sources have since told her that the car was fleeing border patrol agents. She defended her sources (and the network fear mongering) by adding that there was so much heightened awareness of security issues, “when they saw those flames and that impact and that noise, they were told to investigate this as a possible terror attack.” It was unclear who her “police sources” were or how much they were in a position to really know. And Fox News Alert for McAdams: investigating an incident as a possible terrorist attack is not the same as being "very confident" one had happened.
After telling viewers that the exploding car had been stolen, McAdams said, “I think the point that I want to point out here is that when we were told that this was being investigated as a terrorist attack, it’s because of the explosion and the size of the explosion, so much so that it caused them to evacuate government buildings in and around that area and also to close the airport down.” She claimed her sources told her that that was not a typical response to a car explosion.
Have there really been so many car explosions at the border that there is a “typical response?” Color me skeptical. McAdams did not elaborate on her dubious claim.
Here’s an update from The New York Times:
A U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the incident said the driver, who was thought to be American, was believed to be a casino player who frequently crossed the border and had no criminal history.
You can watch Fox baselessly fear monger, then try to legitimize it below, from the November 22, 2023 The Story and The November 22, 2023 Your World.
PS: I noticed Fox seems to have forgotten how vitally important it is to label terrorism "Islamic terrorism" if any Muslim is behind it. Or maybe that was just a requirement for President Obama.