Fox's Airs Misleading Fact Check Of Romney Jeep Ad

Fox News chief national correspondent Jim Angle provided a misleading fact check of Mitt Romney's ad claiming that Chrysler is sending a Jeep production line to China. Angle cherry picked a line from Chrysler's CEO to portray Romney's ad as accurate. In fact, Chrysler has made it clear that Romney's claims are false.

In response to Romney's Jeep-to-China television ad, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne sent an email to shareholders on October 30 explaining that Romney's claim is “inaccurate” and “Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China.” Marchionne added that Chrysler is planning to “return Jeep production to China, the world's largest auto market, in order to satisfy local market demand,” and explained that Chrysler intends to add Jeep jobs in the United States.

But during his “fact check” of Romney's ad on America Live on Friday, Angle claimed that “the head of Fiat-Chrysler confirmed exactly what the Romney ad said,” because the company stated it “had intended to return Jeep production to China, the world's largest auto market in order to satisfy local market demand.”

Marchionne's statement was not the only one issued rebutting Romney's claims. In a statement on October 25, Chrysler wrote on its website that “Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China.” The Romney campaign went ahead with its television ad in Ohio on October 27 despite this statement. Then, on October 30, Romney doubled down on the Jeep attack on Tuesday with a radio ad in Toledo, Ohio, the site of a Jeep plant. That same day, Marchionne sent his email to Chrysler shareholders.

In addition to Chrysler, there has been strong criticism from GM, fact checkers, and local media in Ohio of Romney's false claims that Jeep is sending U.S. jobs to China. On Tuesday, GM spokesman Greg Martin stated: “No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.” PolitiFact rated Romney's claim “pants on fire” false, and The Washington Post's resident fact checker, Glenn Kessler, gave the ad “four Pinocchios.”

Fox previously attempted to hide the backlash to Romney's ad.