“Fox & Friends” apologized Sunday for airing footage of Donald Trump from December 2025 that the show presented as if it were from this week’s dignified transfer of six service members killed in Kuwait.
Photos from March 7 show Trump wearing a white hat with “USA” on it; in the footage that aired on Fox, the president was shown without a hat. The footage of a hatless Trump was from December 2025, when he attended a Dover Air Force Base dignified transfer for two members of the Iowa National Guard and an interpreter who died in Syria.
“Before we move on we want to acknowledge a mistake made earlier on our program during our coverage of yesterdays dignified transfer,” the network explained. “We inadvertently aired video from an older dignified transfer instead of the ceremony that took place yesterday. We deeply regret the error and extend our respective condolences to the service members families. We honor the sacrifice of those six American heroes.”
“FOX News Media programs inadvertently aired file footage from a previous dignified transfer while discussing yesterday’s ceremony at Dover Air Force Base,” Fox News Media explained in a statement shared with TheWrap. “The archival footage was mistakenly used during the video sourcing process. We regret the error and apologize for the incorrect footage.”
The error sparked a response from journalist Mehdi Hasan, who wrote on X, “If any other network did this it would be a huge scandal, Fox would lead the chorus of criticisms and faux-outrage, and people would lose their jobs. But not at Fox. It’s not a news network. It’s a state propaganda channel.”
Saturday’s transfer was the first return home of the bodies of soliders killed since the Trump administration launched a military operation against Iran.
“Very sad situation, to greet the families of the heroes coming home from Iran, coming home in a different manner than they thought they’d be coming home. But they’re great heroes in our country, and we’re going to keep it that way,” Trump told world leaders at the “Shield of the Americas” summit the same day.
