Sunday morning's Fox & Friends applauded President Donald Trump's Saturday directive to cut aid to Central American countries by declaring, "Trump Cuts U.S Aid to 3 Mexican Countries."
The U.S. State Department issued a statement this weekend confirming it was cutting aid to the "Northern Triangle" Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Speaking at Mar-a-Lago Saturday, Trump lamented sending "tremendous amounts of money" to the countries despite their governments' role in not preventing migrants from moving north through Mexico to the U.S. southern border. Sunday's Fox News co-hosts of Ed Henry, Jedediah Bila and Pete Hegseth touted the aid cuts as well as Trump's "strong" move of threatening to shut down the U.S. southern border with Mexico this week.
But the overly congratulatory tone of the Fox & Friends co-hosts was undercut by the show's large on-screen text declaring, "Trump Cuts U.S. Aid to 3 Mexican Countries." According to any and all verified world maps Mexico is one country.
Later in the segment, the Fox & Friends hosts clarified the "inaccurate graphic on-screen...we want to be clear the funding is being cut off to the three Central American countries, we apologize for the error it never should have happened."
Fox & Friends co-host Henry said Sunday, "The president doubling down on his crackdown on illegal immigration, making it clear yesterday he is going full-court press on Mexico and is threatening to shut down the southern border later this week."
"That's right," Hegseth added. "He also announced yesterday and the State Department confirmed we will be cutting payments, aid payments, to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras over the fact those countries have been unable to contain the flood of migrants heading through Mexico to our southern border."
At this point, Fox News blared the conflated chyron reading, "Trump Cuts U.S Aid to 3 Mexican Countries," as the cable news network played footage of migrants in San Salvador Saturday.
"This is a big move," Hegseth continued. "This is one of the few punitive measures the executive branch has, still, to these countries to say, 'hey, get it under control we've been giving you aid for decades we want your societies to be better, we want your countries to be better,' because right now there is a huge magnetic pull to our southern border. We'll see if that leads to any changes in policy in those countries."
Bila continued, "Trump wasted no time with those tweets, coming in strong," before reading the president's comments on Twitter Saturday.
"Mexico must use its very strong immigration laws to stop the many thousands of people trying to get into the USA. Our detention areas are maxed out & we will take no more illegals. Next step is to close the Border! This will also help us with stopping the Drug flow from Mexico!" Trump tweeted Saturday.
Trump also remarked Saturday, "It would be so easy to fix our weak and very stupid Democrat inspired immigration laws. In less than one hour, and then a vote, the problem would be solved. But the Dems don't care about the crime, they don't want any victory for Trump and the Republicans, even if good for USA!"
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Benjamin Fearnow is a reporter based out of Newsweek's New York City offices. He was previously at CBS and Mediaite ... Read more
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