On the July 7 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson echoed the long-debunked falsehood that former Vice President Al Gore claimed that he invented the Internet. Discussing reports of a shortage of one type of IP addresses, Carlson stated: “I was wondering if we should call up Al Gore. Because maybe he would have a solution for this, since he invented the Internet.” Co-host Steve Doocy responded: “Exactly right.”

As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, Gore did not claim that he “invented the Internet.” Rather, during the March 9, 1999, interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer that gave rise to the myth, Gore said: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” Indeed, Wolf Blitzer set the record straight on the July 6 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, stating that Gore “never said, 'I invented the Internet.' ”

From the July 7 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

DOOCY: Meantime, let's -- you're able to email us, friends@foxnews.com, thanks to the Internet. Now, when -- the basis of the Internet is this thing called Internet protocols. It's a number. It's not your -- it's not just FoxNews.com. It's not that thing. It's a series of numbers.

CARLSON: Uh-huh.

DOOCY: And according to the organization in charge of this kind of stuff, the end is near for the Internet because it's gotten way too popular.

CLAYTON MORRIS (guest co-host): Oh, no. It's going to die soon?

CARLSON: It's amazing, Clayton, because when they --

DOOCY: No room at the inn.

CARLSON: -- originally started this in 1981, they apparently gave it a potential of 4 billion numbers.

DOOCY: Right.

CARLSON: And now that space is running out. And it doesn't come as a huge surprise because of the popularity. So it's not really like websites, dot-coms or dot-nets or dot-orgs, it's these weird numbers that Steve's talking about.

DOOCY: The IPs.

MORRIS: Yeah, what happens is, every time you log on -- let's say you have Comcast as your broadband subscriber or company or you have some other company. And every time you log on, your IP address then gets sent to the main server. It registers and recognizes that. They initially invented this thing -- thought that they only had enough for, you know, a few million people --

DOOCY: Right.

MORRIS: -- few billion, or whatever. Didn't realize that people were going to be carrying around -- like me -- like, a mobile version of my Internet --

DOOCY: Sure.

MORRIS: -- in my pocket, like an iPhone. And then, you know, I've got my Bluetooth thing that's dialing into an IP address and then --

DOOCY: [unintelligible]

MORRIS: Yeah.

CARLSON: He's a high-tech guy, Steve.

DOOCY: Yeah, can't you tell?

CARLSON: Now, here's the thing: I was wondering if we should call up Al Gore. Because maybe he would have a solution for this, since he invented the Internet.

DOOCY: Exactly right. Now, here's the other thing about IPs.

From the July 6 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources:

HOWARD KURTZ (host): Now, I had not realized until recently that when you interviewed Al Gore back in the 2000 campaign, that the famous phrase that ever -- has always been affixed to him about inventing the Internet came in an interview with you. Was there some sort of trick question that you drew this out of him?

BLITZER: No, it was a simple question: What makes you different than his opponent for the Democratic nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey? And I wanted him to give me some examples why he thought he'd be better to be the Democratic nominee than Senator Bradley. And then at some point, he started talking about, “I took the initiative in -- to create” -- I don't remember the exact phrase -- “to create the Internet.” But I never -- it never dawned on me that that would be exploded and, to a certain degree, misreported on what he said. He never said, “I invented the Internet” --

KURTZ: Do you think the --

BLITZER: -- although that headline was so damaging to him as a result of that interview.

KURTZ: So you think the media kind of twisted the meaning of his words?

BLITZER: Yes. Yes. Because if you look precisely at what he said, he was very precise. And as you know, Al Gore is a very precise guy. When he was a member of the Congress, he did take the initiative in passing legislation that eventually resulted --

KURTZ: Yes, but all that got lost.

BLITZER: -- in a lot of other people creating the Internet, not necessarily him. But all of it, as you correctly point out, was lost, because the headline was, “I invented the Internet.” And that really hurt him a lot.