How Fox News’ retracted New Orleans report sparked a MAGA meltdown about the border

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. ET, with Fox News reporter Alexis McAdams noting that correspondents David Spunt and Griff Jenkins were “working their sources” to find out that “this person came through Eagle Pass, Texas, two days ago.” During Fox News’ live coverage seven minutes later, Spunt noted that the “vehicle was traced to coming across from Mexico into the United States at Eagle Pass, Texas, two days ago.” Pointing out Jenkins had also contributed to the report, Spunt said they didn’t know “100 percent if this man… was the person driving who crossed the border,” adding the “actual license plate was picked up by a reader at a border crossing.” “I know that raises more questions than answers, but we are providing information to our viewers as we get it,” Spunt continued. The suspect’s citizenship status is not yet confirmed,” she wrote at 10:43 a.m. Hasnie would edit that tweet nine minutes later, removing the reference to the “suspect” coming through the Eagle Pass border station and replacing it with “truck.” The correspondent’s tweet quickly went viral, sparking former Trump adviser Steve Cortes to call for a “legal immigration pause” and to “close the damn border!” Trump, a rapacious Fox News viewer and social media consumer, would soon deliver his first official comments on the massacre and tied it directly to migrant crime and so-called open borders, issues he ran relentlessly on during his successful presidential campaign. “BREAKING: The suspect’s truck in the horrific Bourbon Street attack in New Orleans crossed over the US/Mexico border just two days ago in Eagle Pass, TX,” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk tweeted to his 4.3 million followers, sharing a Fox News clip. Who did our government bomb lately that is taking it out on innocent Americans?” Sharing a clip of McAdams’ initial on-air report, right-wing news aggregator Breaking911 fumed that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris “HAVE MORE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS” because “the man who committed the NYE New Orleans terror attack, crossed into the U.S. from Mexico via Eagle Pass TWO DAYS AGO.” That post soon racked up thousands of retweets and 3.9 million views.