Fox & Friends touts Trump's “connections to Ohio” without noting they involve housing discrimination

Trump worked at a Cincinnati housing complex owned by his father, who was sued for not renting units to Black people

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

The day after President Donald Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Fox News’ Fox & Friends touted the president’s “connections to Ohio” by mentioning the city’s former Swifton Village housing complex, which was once owned by his father and which Trump helped manage. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt said Trump’s time working at the complex made him familiar with culinary staples of Ohio, but no one mentioned that this apartment complex was the subject of a 1970 lawsuit for racial discrimination under the federal Fair Housing Act.  

According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Fred Trump was sued in 1970 for housing discrimination at Swifton Village by an African American applicant who was “told there were no vacancies” at the majority-white complex, located in a majority-white neighborhood. However, a white couple who applied for an apartment around the same time did find a vacancy. The Trumps settled the lawsuit by giving the plaintiff an apartment but without admitting discrimination. 

Fox & Friends has an established pattern of ignoring or downplaying inconvenient facts about Trump’s business career: In February, the hosts invited Eric Trump on the show and failed to ask him about reports that the Trump Organization had recently started purging undocumented workers from its golf courses in New York and New Jersey; in May, co-host Brian Kilmeade downplayed revelations that Trump had lost $1.17 billion in a decade by defending the president’s “bold” business practices; and the show complained last year that a bombshell New York Times article about Trump’s apparent tax evasion was simply “bashing his dad who’s been dead for a very long time.” 

From the August 2 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends: 

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): The president of the United States was in Cincinnati last night. You saw the rally right here on Fox News Channel. There were 17,500 people there at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati. The president has connections to Ohio, he’s talked about it in the past. Fifty years ago his father actually owned the Swifton Village housing complex in the Bond Hill area. So he’s got a connection, not only through his family, but also, he won Ohio last time. He needs to win Ohio again this time.  

…

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): He’s familiar with Skyline Chili and Graeter’s ice cream because he said to that entire audience, he said, “I worked for my dad in the Swifton Village.” He said, “Does anyone know where the Swifton Village is?” And some people, you know, clapped and got excited about it. It’s always nice when someone famous comes into your town and they can relate to the people, and that’s what he does there.