Moments after an explosive, televised White House shouting match between President Trump and Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, another skirmish broke out in response on the president’s favorite cable-news channel.
After viewing Trump’s threat to shutdown the government if Democrats don’t agree to fund his desired border wall, former congressman Jason Chaffetz, now a Trump-boosting Fox News contributor, instantly deployed on Fox’s Outnumbered the right-wing conspiracy theory that Democrats actively supported the migrant caravan to boost their midterm electoral chances.
Before he could finish his unsubstantiated, deeply partisan claims, however, the afternoon talk show’s co-host Marie Harf cut off Chaffetz, dressing him down for spreading conspiracy theories.
ADVERTISEMENT
“That's not true, neither of those things are true, Jason,” said Harf in the clip first spotted by Mediaite.
“It is absolutely true!” Chaffetz shouted back. “It is 100 percent true! It is human trafficking!”
The show’s main host, Harris Faulkner, chimed in to break the tension, “You interrupted a former congressman and he’s calling you on it,” seemingly siding with her conservative colleague.
“When he says things that aren’t accurate on TV,” Harf fired back, before turning to back to Chaffetz,“I'm going to interrupt you.”
The former Obama aide went on to explain that “The Democratic caucus does not support shutting down ICE. Individual members talk about it, the caucus does not.”
And then she addressed the ex-congressman’s conspiratorial rhetoric: “Second, the Democratic Party is not supporting the caravan, that is a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked online. Do not repeat it for our viewers.”
“Well, I wholeheartedly believe, in my heart,” the lawmaker said in response, “there is evidence.”
Harf fired back once more: “There’s no evidence. In your heart you might feel that, [but] there’s no evidence. No evidence, no evidence, none, none.”
Chaffetz replied: “That is just not true. We disagree on that one.”
And in typical Fox News fashion, the show ignored the lone liberal’s pleas against conspiratorial rhetoric, instead turning to a conversation about whether Pelosi “made it personal” during her Oval Office meeting with the president.
