Home
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/feb/26/50-fox-news-lies-6-seconds-daily-show/
The Daily Show posted a Vine Wednesday titled, "50 Fox News lies in 6 seconds."
We’ve fact-checked almost all of the statements they cited. For the record, we originally counted 49 claims, not 50. The Daily Show said No. 50 was left off due to a technical error. They've updated their Vine, which we've included here.
* * *
1. "In July 2010 the government said small businesses -- 60 percent -- will lose their health care, 45 percent of big business and a large percentage of individual health."
Sean Hannity, Nov. 11, 2013
False
* * *
2. "And President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture out of his own pocket, yet it's the Republican National Committee who's paying for this."
Anna Kooiman, Oct. 5, 2013
* * *
3. Labor union president Andy Stern is "the most frequent visitor" at the White House.
Glenn Beck, Dec. 3, 2009
False
* * *
4. "Far more children died last year drowning in their bathtubs than were killed accidentally by guns."
Tucker Carlson, Aug. 9, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
5. White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard once served as the "right-hand man" for Bertha Lewis, who heads up ACORN.
Steve Doocy, Sept. 29, 2009
False
* * *
6. "Look at the debt that has been accumulated in the last two years. It's more debt under this president than all those other presidents combined."
Sarah Palin, May 31, 2011
False
* * *
7. "There is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people."
John Stossel, Dec. 4, 2014
False
* * *
8. "Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history."
Sarah Palin, Aug. 1, 2010
Pants on Fire
* * *
9. "The insurance industry is actually run by mostly Democrats."
Dana Perino, Oct. 31, 2013
False
* * *
10. The Obama administration "manipulated deportation data to make it appear that the Border Patrol was deporting more illegal immigrants than the Bush administration."
Lou Dobbs, July 1, 2014
False
* * *
11. Some doctors say Ebola can be transmitted through the air by "a sneeze or some cough."
George Will, Oct. 19, 2014
False
* * *
12. Says the Texas State Board of Education is considering eliminating references to Christmas and the Constitution in textbooks.
Gretchen Carlson, March 10, 2010
Pants on Fire
* * *
13. Because of President Barack Obama’s failure to "push job creation," the black unemployment rate in Ferguson, Mo., is three times higher than the white unemployment rate.
Lou Dobbs, Aug. 19, 2014
False
* * *
14. When White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Mao Tse-tung was "one of her favorite philosophers, only Fox News picked that up."
Bill O’Reilly, Oct. 23, 2009
False
* * *
15. "The president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day."
Michele Bachmann, Nov. 3, 2010
False
(Note: Bachmann’s claim was made on CNN, not Fox News but Glenn Beck made a similar claim on Fox)
* * *
16. "We researched to find out if anybody on Fox News had ever said you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody's ever said it."
Bill O’Reilly, Oct. 27, 2010
Pants on Fire
* * *
17. "If you make more than $250,000 a year … you only really take home about $125,000."
Steve Doocy, July 11, 2012
False
* * *
18. A Census Bureau worker says he was told to skew information to bring the unemployment rate down "as we headed into an election season."
Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Nov. 19, 2013
False
* * *
19. "Health care mandate will require imprisonment and fines for Americans who can’t afford to purchase insurance or pay hefty government penalties."
Patients First, Sept. 21, 2009
Mostly False
(Note: Fox hosts have said closely similar statements because of our research into Bill O’Reilly’s Pants on Fire claim -- No. 16 -- that no one on Fox News ever said it.)
* * *
20. "And finally tonight, although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart? Comedy Central? He was right. Now on his program last night, he mentioned that we had played some incorrect video on this program last week while talking about the Republican health care rally on Capitol Hill. He was correct, we screwed up, we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the actual event. It was an inadvertent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, so Mr. Stewart. you were right, we apologize. But by the way, I wanna thank you, and all your writers, for watching."
Sean Hannity, Nov. 12, 2009
* * *
21. "I don’t remember any terrorist attacks on American soil during that period of time (2000-08)."
Eric Bolling, July 14, 2011
* * *
22. The United Way and Enroll America, in Coral Gables, Fla., had "navigators going door to door, knocking on the homes of the uninsured … helping them navigate through the different plans that are available.
Phil Keating, Oct. 1, 2013
* * *
23. Less than 10 percent of Obama's Cabinet appointees "have any experience in the private sector."
Glenn Beck, Nov. 30, 2009
False
* * *
24. During the lead-up to the American Revolutionary War, "some guy in Boston got his head blown off because he tried to secretly raise the tax on tea."
Andrea Tantaros, Jan. 15, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
25. "American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation."
Karl Rove, March 23, 2001
False
* * *
26. "The 'Denver Post' has actually hired an editor to promote pot."
Bill O’Reilly, Dec. 9, 2013
False
* * *
27. "The amount of attention paid this week to Chris Christie makes the coverage of Benghazi ... pale in significance."
Karl Rove, Jan. 12, 2014
False
* * *
28. Liberals have figured out a Facebook algorithm and "all the people getting banned from Facebook are somehow conservatives."
Todd Starnes, April 17, 2014
False
* * *
29. Obamacare is "one big fat VA system."
Kimberly Guilfoyle, May 21, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
30. Says Gov. Rick Scott's approval ratings are up.
Brian Kilmeade, April 15, 2001
False
* * *
31. "Under the Obama plan . . . all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government."
Sen. Tom Coburn, March 4, 2009
False
* * *
32. If you log into the government's Cash for Clunkers website (cars.gov) from your home computer, the government can "seize all of your personal and private" information, and track your computer activity.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, July 31, 2009
False
* * *
33. The Massachusetts health care plan is "wildly unpopular" among state residents.
Laura Ingraham, May 12, 2011
False
* * *
34. "The Constitution simply does not authorize the federal government to own any of this land (in the Western states)."
Andrew Napolitano, April 23, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
35. Says President Barack Obama is "sending a much larger (force) " to deal with Ebola "than ISIS is getting."
Brit Hume, Sept. 21, 2014
False
* * *
36. On climate change, "the temperature readings have been fabricated, and it's all blowing up in their (scientists') faces."
Dana Perino, Feb. 9, 2015
Pants on Fire
* * *
37. Says President Barack Obama’s recent New York fundraising trip "cost between $25 million and $50 million."
Donald Trump, Oct. 13, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
38. Under President Barack Obama, "8.3 (million) fewer Americans are working today than there were four years ago."
Sean Hannity, Jan. 20, 2013
False
* * *
39. Seniors and the disabled "will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."
Sarah Palin, Aug. 7, 2009
Pants on Fire
(Note: This claim was made originally on Facebook. It’s unclear to us if Palin said it on Fox News.)
* * *
40. New poll by YouGov shows that 7/10 people who voted for President Obama’s re-election in 2012 ‘regret’ doing so
Fox and Friend tweet, Feb. 19, 2014
False
* * *
41. "NASA scientists fudged the numbers to make 1998 the hottest year to overstate the extent of global warming."
Steve Doocy, June 24, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
42. A new Colorado law "literally allows residents to print ballots from their home computers, then encourages them to turn ballots over to ‘collectors.’ "
Megyn Kelly, Oct. 21, 2014
False
* * *
43. The Affordable Care Act alters the "sensible doctor-patient-relationship-centered health care program ... we see today."
Sarah Palin, Nov. 24, 2013
False
* * *
44. Since 1965, the United States has spent "untold trillions" yet the poverty rate hasn’t budged.
Bill O’Reilly, July 26, 2011
False
* * *
45. Says Colorado food stamp recipients can use ATMs to get cash to buy marijuana.
Brian Kilmeade, Jan. 21, 2014
False
* * *
46. "Attorney General Eric Holder is involved in the dismissal of the criminal charges" against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation
Bill O’Reilly, July 17, 2010
False
* * *
47. "Barack Obama had 150 days in the U.S. Senate where he was able to vote quite often 'present.' "
Sarah Palin, Feb. 6, 2010
False
* * *
48. "It will cost $50,000 per enrollee in Obamacare over the next 10 years."
Stuart Varney, Jan. 27, 2015
False
* * *
49. "We're going to be looking at $8 billion a day that we're going to be pouring into foreign countries in order to import that make-up fuel that we're going to need to take the place of what we could have gotten out of the Gulf (of Mexico)."
Sarah Palin, May 1, 2013
Pants on Fire
* * *
50. "Why do we have automatic citizenship upon birth? We're the only country in the world that has it."
Glenn Beck, June 10, 2009
False
The Daily Show posted a Vine Wednesday titled, "50 Fox News lies in 6 seconds."
We’ve fact-checked almost all of the statements they cited. For the record, we originally counted 49 claims, not 50. The Daily Show said No. 50 was left off due to a technical error. They've updated their Vine, which we've included here.
* * *
1. "In July 2010 the government said small businesses -- 60 percent -- will lose their health care, 45 percent of big business and a large percentage of individual health."
Sean Hannity, Nov. 11, 2013
False
* * *
2. "And President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture out of his own pocket, yet it's the Republican National Committee who's paying for this."
Anna Kooiman, Oct. 5, 2013
* * *
3. Labor union president Andy Stern is "the most frequent visitor" at the White House.
Glenn Beck, Dec. 3, 2009
False
* * *
4. "Far more children died last year drowning in their bathtubs than were killed accidentally by guns."
Tucker Carlson, Aug. 9, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
5. White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard once served as the "right-hand man" for Bertha Lewis, who heads up ACORN.
Steve Doocy, Sept. 29, 2009
False
* * *
6. "Look at the debt that has been accumulated in the last two years. It's more debt under this president than all those other presidents combined."
Sarah Palin, May 31, 2011
False
* * *
7. "There is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people."
John Stossel, Dec. 4, 2014
False
* * *
8. "Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history."
Sarah Palin, Aug. 1, 2010
Pants on Fire
* * *
9. "The insurance industry is actually run by mostly Democrats."
Dana Perino, Oct. 31, 2013
False
* * *
10. The Obama administration "manipulated deportation data to make it appear that the Border Patrol was deporting more illegal immigrants than the Bush administration."
Lou Dobbs, July 1, 2014
False
* * *
11. Some doctors say Ebola can be transmitted through the air by "a sneeze or some cough."
George Will, Oct. 19, 2014
False
* * *
12. Says the Texas State Board of Education is considering eliminating references to Christmas and the Constitution in textbooks.
Gretchen Carlson, March 10, 2010
Pants on Fire
* * *
13. Because of President Barack Obama’s failure to "push job creation," the black unemployment rate in Ferguson, Mo., is three times higher than the white unemployment rate.
Lou Dobbs, Aug. 19, 2014
False
* * *
14. When White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Mao Tse-tung was "one of her favorite philosophers, only Fox News picked that up."
Bill O’Reilly, Oct. 23, 2009
False
* * *
15. "The president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day."
Michele Bachmann, Nov. 3, 2010
False
(Note: Bachmann’s claim was made on CNN, not Fox News but Glenn Beck made a similar claim on Fox)
* * *
16. "We researched to find out if anybody on Fox News had ever said you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody's ever said it."
Bill O’Reilly, Oct. 27, 2010
Pants on Fire
* * *
17. "If you make more than $250,000 a year … you only really take home about $125,000."
Steve Doocy, July 11, 2012
False
* * *
18. A Census Bureau worker says he was told to skew information to bring the unemployment rate down "as we headed into an election season."
Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Nov. 19, 2013
False
* * *
19. "Health care mandate will require imprisonment and fines for Americans who can’t afford to purchase insurance or pay hefty government penalties."
Patients First, Sept. 21, 2009
Mostly False
(Note: Fox hosts have said closely similar statements because of our research into Bill O’Reilly’s Pants on Fire claim -- No. 16 -- that no one on Fox News ever said it.)
* * *
20. "And finally tonight, although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart? Comedy Central? He was right. Now on his program last night, he mentioned that we had played some incorrect video on this program last week while talking about the Republican health care rally on Capitol Hill. He was correct, we screwed up, we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the actual event. It was an inadvertent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, so Mr. Stewart. you were right, we apologize. But by the way, I wanna thank you, and all your writers, for watching."
Sean Hannity, Nov. 12, 2009
* * *
21. "I don’t remember any terrorist attacks on American soil during that period of time (2000-08)."
Eric Bolling, July 14, 2011
* * *
22. The United Way and Enroll America, in Coral Gables, Fla., had "navigators going door to door, knocking on the homes of the uninsured … helping them navigate through the different plans that are available.
Phil Keating, Oct. 1, 2013
* * *
23. Less than 10 percent of Obama's Cabinet appointees "have any experience in the private sector."
Glenn Beck, Nov. 30, 2009
False
* * *
24. During the lead-up to the American Revolutionary War, "some guy in Boston got his head blown off because he tried to secretly raise the tax on tea."
Andrea Tantaros, Jan. 15, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
25. "American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation."
Karl Rove, March 23, 2001
False
* * *
26. "The 'Denver Post' has actually hired an editor to promote pot."
Bill O’Reilly, Dec. 9, 2013
False
* * *
27. "The amount of attention paid this week to Chris Christie makes the coverage of Benghazi ... pale in significance."
Karl Rove, Jan. 12, 2014
False
* * *
28. Liberals have figured out a Facebook algorithm and "all the people getting banned from Facebook are somehow conservatives."
Todd Starnes, April 17, 2014
False
* * *
29. Obamacare is "one big fat VA system."
Kimberly Guilfoyle, May 21, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
30. Says Gov. Rick Scott's approval ratings are up.
Brian Kilmeade, April 15, 2001
False
* * *
31. "Under the Obama plan . . . all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government."
Sen. Tom Coburn, March 4, 2009
False
* * *
32. If you log into the government's Cash for Clunkers website (cars.gov) from your home computer, the government can "seize all of your personal and private" information, and track your computer activity.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, July 31, 2009
False
* * *
33. The Massachusetts health care plan is "wildly unpopular" among state residents.
Laura Ingraham, May 12, 2011
False
* * *
34. "The Constitution simply does not authorize the federal government to own any of this land (in the Western states)."
Andrew Napolitano, April 23, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
35. Says President Barack Obama is "sending a much larger (force) " to deal with Ebola "than ISIS is getting."
Brit Hume, Sept. 21, 2014
False
* * *
36. On climate change, "the temperature readings have been fabricated, and it's all blowing up in their (scientists') faces."
Dana Perino, Feb. 9, 2015
Pants on Fire
* * *
37. Says President Barack Obama’s recent New York fundraising trip "cost between $25 million and $50 million."
Donald Trump, Oct. 13, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
38. Under President Barack Obama, "8.3 (million) fewer Americans are working today than there were four years ago."
Sean Hannity, Jan. 20, 2013
False
* * *
39. Seniors and the disabled "will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."
Sarah Palin, Aug. 7, 2009
Pants on Fire
(Note: This claim was made originally on Facebook. It’s unclear to us if Palin said it on Fox News.)
* * *
40. New poll by YouGov shows that 7/10 people who voted for President Obama’s re-election in 2012 ‘regret’ doing so
Fox and Friend tweet, Feb. 19, 2014
False
* * *
41. "NASA scientists fudged the numbers to make 1998 the hottest year to overstate the extent of global warming."
Steve Doocy, June 24, 2014
Pants on Fire
* * *
42. A new Colorado law "literally allows residents to print ballots from their home computers, then encourages them to turn ballots over to ‘collectors.’ "
Megyn Kelly, Oct. 21, 2014
False
* * *
43. The Affordable Care Act alters the "sensible doctor-patient-relationship-centered health care program ... we see today."
Sarah Palin, Nov. 24, 2013
False
* * *
44. Since 1965, the United States has spent "untold trillions" yet the poverty rate hasn’t budged.
Bill O’Reilly, July 26, 2011
False
* * *
45. Says Colorado food stamp recipients can use ATMs to get cash to buy marijuana.
Brian Kilmeade, Jan. 21, 2014
False
* * *
46. "Attorney General Eric Holder is involved in the dismissal of the criminal charges" against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation
Bill O’Reilly, July 17, 2010
False
* * *
47. "Barack Obama had 150 days in the U.S. Senate where he was able to vote quite often 'present.' "
Sarah Palin, Feb. 6, 2010
False
* * *
48. "It will cost $50,000 per enrollee in Obamacare over the next 10 years."
Stuart Varney, Jan. 27, 2015
False
* * *
49. "We're going to be looking at $8 billion a day that we're going to be pouring into foreign countries in order to import that make-up fuel that we're going to need to take the place of what we could have gotten out of the Gulf (of Mexico)."
Sarah Palin, May 1, 2013
Pants on Fire
* * *
50. "Why do we have automatic citizenship upon birth? We're the only country in the world that has it."
Glenn Beck, June 10, 2009
False