Lawrence Jones Mocks Biden Warning About Misinformation As ‘Stupid’ — Then Spouts His OWN Misinformation

Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones took serious issue with President Joe Biden’s warning about the rise of misinformation right before immediately making an argument that could easily be viewed as misinformation itself — or at the very least a remarkably hypocritical take on technology moguls putting their thumbs on the scales.

In his final speech in this venue, Biden addressed the nation Wednesday evening from the Oval Office. His remarks praised the American spirit, took credit for foreign policy and economic wins, and sounded the alarm on both the rise of oligarchs and the threat that misinformation poses to democracy.

Steve Doocy introduced the segment by first noting how things have changed, insisting that Silicon Valley has helped Democrats get elected in the past and now things have changed.  “Elon Musk is an unofficial part of Donald Trump’s cabinet,” Doocy noted. “Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Apple [Cook], as he was referred to, is going to be at the inauguration along with Sam Altman.”

“Silicon Valley is lining up now behind, or at least cozying up to, Donald Trump,” he said as he introduced a clip of Biden’s speech. “That is driving Joe Biden, who used to count on them, crazy. He referred to them, not by name. He referred to them as the ‘tech industrial complex’ from the resolute desk last night. Watch.”

Fox News viewers then saw Biden say the following:

In his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us then about it, and I quote: “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex that can pose real dangers for our country as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by liest old for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable. To protect our children. Our families. And the very democracy from the abuse of power.

“I just think this is a stupid move,” Jones said, pouncing on the Biden excerpt. He then went off, listing all the reasons he thought Biden was “stupid” for this portion of the speech.

Big Tech, who has been in the pockets of the Democratic party for years, they sit out one election cycle because things are going bad with the country. And now you want to make them the enemy? They helped you out the last time. What about apologizing to the American people? When you said that the laptop was disinformation. You knew your son was an addict. You knew he was posting things. You knew about it. And they covered for you. What about the apology to the American people on that? But they cover for you and you still bash these people?!

Frequent viewers of Fox News will hear these comments in the same way a classic rock radio listener delights in hearing “Hotel California” played for the 10,000th time. These are not uncommon takes, but the irony here is that Jones is criticizing Biden’s warning about misinformation while simultaneously misinforming his viewers.

First, Jones’s claim that “Big Tech” sat out the 2024 election is objectively, if not laughably, false. Elon Musk purchased Twitter, renamed it X and became Trump’s most vocal and influential supporter, reportedly donating over $25o million to the Trump election effort. More importantly, he offered a constant stream of pro-Trump and anti-Democrat messages that always seemed to appear at the top of the “For You” feed whether he was followed or not. He significantly changed moderation efforts to allow for a “public square” style discussion but literally changed the algorithm to favor and feature more pro-MAGA voices.

For all of the conservative recriminations “Big Tech” got in the run-up and following the 2020 election,  alleging that major tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google all collectively put their thumbs on the election scales to help Biden get elected, what Musk did was far more egregious. And to be fair, those were not entirely unreasonable criticisms.  But they magically disappeared from Fox News when X flat-out became a pro-Trump propaganda arm under Musk’s leadership.

It’s easy to argue that Elon Musk and X were more actively supporting Trump than any tech platform has endorsed any candidate. And the thing is, Jones seems to know this, or at least he revealed from a private conversation with Trump that the president-elect is well aware of Musk’s help and is okay with it. Again, to argue against Big Tech’s influence on the election and then praise the very same thing in the next is just bizarre.

The laptop portion of Jones’s comments is much more complicated, if not murkier, almost by design.

Biden did dismiss the laptop as Russian disinformation or at least agreed with a question about it in December of 2021, before more details emerged. But it is worth noting that there were good reasons for roughly 50 former intel officers to sign a letter that the information procured from the laptop “looked like Russian disinformation”  — because it did!

A Politico headline falsely said they claimed it was “Russian disinfo”  in a shorthanded headline. However, the letter signed by 50 intel officers said it  “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Seeing how it came from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was looking for dirt after months in Ukraine, and the details were delivered to the NY Post on a hard drive? That does look like disinformation, even if the laptop proved to be real, as were the embarrassingly salacious images that it produced.

But as far as I know, Hunter Biden never “posted” any images as Jones asserted — they emerged from the hacked laptop.

“You knew he was posting things,” Jones claimed, though he provided no evidence to what Biden knew or didn’t know. “You knew about it. And they covered for you. What about the apology to the American people on that?”

The laptop debacle has long been an effective cudgel against “Big Tech,” and much of it is reasonable. Both former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Zuckerberg have each publicly admitted that it was mishandled. One can reasonably argue that the Streisand Effect — the phenomenon in which an attempt to censor, hide, or otherwise draw attention away from something only to attract more — made the story much bigger and more effective for Trump and his Republican allies.

Jones can say whatever he wants on an opinion-based program like the top-rated cable news morning show Fox & Friends. But he ought to get his facts right — especially when calling out misinformation.

Watch above via Fox News.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.