Sean Hannity was apparently punked by a parody news site that said the U.S. is taking in 250,000 Syrian refugees. Even worse, after Hannity relayed the “news” to Donald Trump, he repeated it on the campaign trail.
PolitiFact caught Hannity on October 20 and 21 claiming that the U.S. is taking in 250,000 Syrian refugees. Hannity also fear mongered that ISIS would try to infiltrate the group. PolitiFact could find no basis for such a claim other than from a hoax article from the fake news site, Real News Right Now. Hannity’s claim was rated Pants On Fire by the fact-checking site.
Even worse, Hannity’s falsehood made it into the Trump campaign a few days later.
From Media Matters:
At a New Hampshire town hall event broadcast by NBC, Matt Lauer pressed Trump on his belief that refugees who have escaped Syria and entered the United States should be deported. Trump defended his position by saying, “Now we’re going to take in 250,000 people, they’re coming from areas we don’t know.” He added, “They have no papers, no documents,” and declared, “this could be the greatest Trojan horse of all time.”
Media Matters also pointed out that this is far from the first time Trump has parroted right-wing media myths as his own talking points.
Meanwhile, will Hannity correct the record? Stay tuned.
Watch Hannity and Trump promote the falsehood above, via PolitiFact.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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