Fox Politicizes Violence In Egypt And Libya To Revive False Obama Apology Narrative

Fox News used the death of the U.S. ambassador and other Americans in Libya and the violence at the American embassy in Egypt to revive the long-debunked claim that President Obama apologizes for America.

After Egyptian media reported on a film created by an American which denounces Islam, protesters in Egypt scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo and tore down the American flag, and a mob attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing several Americans including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

The New York Times reported that the U.S. embassy in Cairo issued a statement condemning “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims,” which was released before the protests started. The embassy later denounced the “unjustified breach of our embassy.” Hours later, Politico reported that this statement was disavowed by the Obama administration, quoting an official who said that “the statement by Embassy Cairo was not cleared by Washington and does not reflect the views of the United States government.”

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton both strongly condemned the violence that resulted from these protests, which resulted in the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. 

Fox used this tragedy as an opportunity to a revisit a long-debunked falsehood, claiming that in a June 4, 2009, speech at the University of Cairo, Obama apologized for American foreign policies, and that he and his administration has a habit of apologizing.

Despite reporting Obama's condemnation during Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed that the next President will need to “deal with this deep-seated feeling within the State Department to apologize for being American. Again we apologized -- that was the attitude in the original statement that was sent out and disavowed by the White House.”

Later, co-host Gretchen Carlson claimed:

President Obama went to Cairo, early on in his administration, and gave what many believed to be an apology kind of a speech. That was an outreach, according to the administration, to the Muslim nations, that this was going to be a different kind of president. And what happened? The polls said that people in Muslim nations disliked Americans more, after that speech. And now you are seeing, because of a crazy movie put out with clips on YouTube, that this kind of uprising can happen in these Middle Eastern nations.

This attack by Fox & Friends followed a news report on the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya. And no matter how often Fox News claims Obama has a habit of apologizing, independent fact-checkers have repeatedly said the claim is false.