Trump Promotes Fake Fox News Theory With Fake Photo

Twitter

Real-estate mogul Donald Trump promoted a fake photo and a conspiracy theory in the middle of his Thursday-morning tweetstorm blasting Fox News and one of the network’s anchors, Megyn Kelly.

Trump tweeted someone’s photo that supposedly shows Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Alwaleed’s sister, and Kelly.

The text on the image stated:

“Most people don’t know that the co-owner of Fox News is Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi Arabia here with his sister and with host Mygan [sic] Kelly. In case you only watch Fox News and you missed it everywhere else. GOOGLE IT!”

(h/t Business Insider)

Reality

We Googled the claim… which yielded multiple fact-checking websites declaring that it was mostly false. Snopes.com reported that the photo was a fabrication and found the original photo of Kelly.

Both Snopes.com and PolitiFact reported that the ownership claim wasn’t true, but the billionaire Saudi prince’s investment company owns a smaller amount of 21st Century Fox.

Trump Retweets Megyn Kelly Can’t Contain Bias

Twitter

Donald Trump retweeted several attacks on Megyn Kelly as a moderator of the Fox News/Google debate a few days before the event on Twitter. This one had the added bonus of the debunked conspiracy theory that a Saudi Prince that Megyn Kelly is friends with owns Fox news.

“@Crusade4Honesty: @BornToBeGOP @megynkelly Megan can not contain her bias, it’s in every show, Fox owners Saudi Prince agnstT”

Reality

I’m not going to defend Megyn Kelly too hard here. Crusade4Honesty may have a point.

Trump has had an issue with Kelly since she moderated a Republican presidential debate in August. He accused her of being unfairly harsh on him by asking him valid questions about past sexist and misogynist comments. Fox News is standing by its anchor, calling the attacks on her “sexist verbal assaults.”