Fox News Reporter Apologizes for Mistaken Rally Report After Trump’s Hawley Rumor Tweet
President Donald Trump sent reporters and voters scrambling with a tweet Tuesday about Missouri Attorney General and GOP candidate Josh Hawley, who is running for the senate against Democrat Claire McCaskill.
There is a rumor, put out by the Democrats, that Josh Hawley of Missouri left the Arena last night early. It is Fake News. He met me at the plane when I arrived, spoke at the great Rally, & stayed to the very end. In fact, I said goodbye to him and left before he did. Deception!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2018
Earlier on Tuesday, Fox & Friends reported that Hawley left last night’s Trump rally early and in a hurry, and Politico and others speculated that cohost Brian Kilmeade‘s comment may have been what prompted Trump’s tweet.
But just now on Fox, another reporter seems to have owned up. During Outnumbered Overtime, host Harris Faulkner went to reporter Kristin Fisher, who is in Missouri covering the race.
“Before I get into what we’re seeing at these polling places today, I just want to correct something I said last night at this rally with President Trump and the Republican Senate candidate in this race, Josh Hawley,” she began. “You know, about an hour into the president’s remarks last night, we still hadn’t heard from or seen Josh Hawley, and it was really loud inside this rally, and I thought that I heard President Trump say that Josh Hawley was ‘leaving’. But what he really said was that Josh Hawley is ‘leading’, as in, leading in the polls.”
“So I just wanted to apologize for my mistake and set the record straight, especially since, to complicate matters even further now, President Trump is now tweeting,” she said and read aloud the tweet above from President Trump.
It is presumably that report which prompted Kilmeade’s comment this morning, when he said that “Why Josh Hawley didn’t stay last night for the Missouri rally is beyond me…What could he have been doing that was so important?”
Fisher then noted that both candidates have cast their votes. “Now Senator McCaskill, she just voted at this polling place, which is right outside St. Louis,” she said. “Hawley just voted about an hour away from here in Columbia, Missouri.”
Fisher pointed out that the close race, in state with no early voting, will hinge on turnout. “It really all comes down to who actually shows up today and votes,” she said. Which is a pretty good reason not to kick off a rumor that one of the candidates is bailing, actually.
Watch the clip above, courtesy of Fox News.
[Featured image via screengrab]
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