Fox News Hosts Claim They ‘Got Hijacked’ – Democrat Blames Their Lack of ‘Due Dilligance’
The crew of “Fox & Friends First,” the early AM show that airs 4-6 AM ET, apparently mixed up their bookings and put live on-air a Democratic candidate for Congress – but the wrong Democratic candidate for Congress. What followed was an interview that went off-the-rails, with the co-hosts not quite understanding that their guest was Massachusetts state senator Barbara L’Italien, not Arizona’s Ann Kirkpatrick.
L’Italien took the opportunity to “speak directly to Donald Trump,’ and told Fox News viewers that “separating kids from their parents is illegal and inhumane.”
She demanded Trump “stop putting kids in cages,” which the co-hosts tried to insist was not still happening (it is.)
Once the early AM Fox News crew figured out their mistake, they pulled the plug – literally – on L’Italien, whose screen suddenly went blank.
And while they tried to laugh it off, telling viewers, “That didn’t go as planned,” on social media they threw a pity party for themselves.
“Fox & Friends First” cohost Rob Schmitt, rather than apologize to viewers for the embarrassing mixup, attacked his guest. He accused her of hijacking the segment with “a publicity stunt.”
His tweet almost suggests that the Fox News producers got confused because the two Democrats look somewhat alike, kind of?
Schmitt later went on to claim L’Italien snookered the producers, but how exactly did that happen?
Meanwhile, Schmitt’s co-host, Jillian Mele, went nuts.
Looking for sympathy, she attacked L’Italien, for pulling a “weak move.”
Meanwhile, Mele wasn’t done.
One Twitter user chastised her decision to work for Fox News:
Mele attacked:
Her target responded, explaining why her reasoning is dead wrong:
And so, Mele apparently blocked O’Grady:
So, how did this actually happen?
L’Italien’s staff told ThinkProgress:
“They reached out to our staff believing they were reaching the Kirkpatrick office due to their own failure of due diligence,” a source with the L’Italien campaign told ThinkProgress. “Over the process of getting the interview scheduled, they repeatedly showed very little grasp on the facts, down to whether or not Ann Kirkpatrick was still in Congress.”
UPDATE: 11:34 AM ET –
Apparently O’Grady isn’t the only one Mele is blocking:
While Schmitt just called his viewers stupid: