Fox's phony “brouhaha” advances false story about Obama's January meeting with House GOP

Fox's Shannon Bream, while discussing the recent cancellation of President Obama's scheduled meeting with congressional Republicans, pushed the ridiculously untrue claim about the meeting between Obama and the House GOP in January.

Bream claims there was a “brouhaha” associated with the meeting, reporting that “a lot” of House Republicans said that they “didn't know he was coming.”

But as Talking Points Memo has explained, this is clearly untrue. House Republicans knew in advance that Obama planned to attend the meeting, with Rep. Mike Pence (chairman of the House Republican Conference) issuing a press release thanking the President for “accept[ing] our invitation” to attend.

At the same time both Politico and The Hill, among others, reported on the planned visit. It wasn't a surprise to anyone. As far as people knowing about Obama's attendance in advance, there was no “brouhaha.”

Bream's overarching premise - that the “brouhaha” over the previous meeting caused the current meeting's cancellation - also falls apart as the Senate GOP leadership's spokesman explained that “The meeting was scheduled for November 30th, because it didn't work this week and because that's the date that worked for everybody -- period.” According to washingtonpost.com's Greg Sargent, “I have not been able to find a single GOP aide who actually subscribes to the 'ambush' myth, either on or off the record.”

There was no ambush, there was no brouhaha, and the cancellation wasn't caused by worry over the nonexistent previous brouhaha. Everything Bream said about this was untrue.