Fox & Friends Booked the Wrong House Candidate and it Went Spectacularly Badly

Fox & Friends First thought on Monday morning that they had booked Ann Kirkpatrick, a pro-ICE Democrat running for Congress in Arizona — but they ended up with Barbara L’Italien, a state senator running for Congress in Massachusetts.

“Tell us why you do support ICE?” Fox News host Jillian Mele asked the guest she assumed was Kirkpatrick.

“Good morning. I’m actually here to speak directly to Donald Trump,” L’Italien said. “I feel that what’s happening at the border is wrong. I’m a mother of four, and I believe that separating kids from their parents is illegal and inhumane.”

“I’m actually Barbara L’Italien, I’m a state senator representing a large immigrant community,” she continued. “I’m running for Congress in Massachusetts,” she continued. “I keep thinking about what we’re putting parents through, imagining how terrifying that must be for those families, imagining how it would feel not knowing if I’d ever see my kids again. We have to stop abducting children and ripping them from their parents’ arms, stop putting kids in cages, and stop making 3-year-old defend themselves in court.”

“That practice has stopped at this point Mrs. Kirkpatrick, right?” host Rob Schmitt asked L’Italien.

Trump reversed his zero-tolerance immigration policy that separated migrant children from their parents, but thousands of families remain separated.

“Again my name is Barbara L’Italien and I refuse to believe that our only options are open borders or traumatized children–” she replied, as the show cut her video feed.

“Who is this?” a bewildered Schmitt asked. “That didn’t go as planned.”

According to ThinkProgress, the L’Italien campaign claimed that Fox News reached out to them thinking they were staffers for Kirkpatrick. The Massachusetts candidate took advantage of the mistake to speak directly to Trump.

Watch above, via Fox News.

UPDATE: Fox News released a statement to Mediaite from Fox & Friends First executive producer Desiree Dunne explaining that L’Italien had duped its bookers into thinking she was Kirkpatrick:

“This morning we invited Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick to appear on Fox & Friends First through her press contact on file Joe Katz who accepted the invitation on Kirkpatrick’s behalf. Katz followed with an email confirming the segment which also included background information and a campaign logo for Ann Kirkpatrick. During the actual segment, Barbara L’Italien, appeared on camera instead of Kirkpatrick. Despite speaking to producers prior to the interview, L’Italien did not identify herself as anything other than Kirkpatrick until she was live on air, at which point we ended the interview.”

[image via screengrab]

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