Fox News hosts and anchors have in hand evidence that their network obtained from a Republican source debunking a falsehood the network has repeatedly promoted about the Hurricane Helene response. They do not care — and are in many cases continuing to push the same lie — because they work for a propaganda outlet whose primary objective is helping former President Donald Trump return to the White House.

Fox chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram landed a big scoop on Tuesday night, posting to X about how he had “obtained a fact sheet assembled by the majority side of [the] House Appropriations Committee about disaster aid” for Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. 

He keyed in on the fact sheet’s statements about aid to immigrants, writing: “It also declares there is ‘no funding connection between’ the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund. It adds there is ‘no intermingling of funding between these two programs.’ It adds that ‘the only connection is that both programs are administered by FEMA.’”

This is important because Trump had repeatedly tried to link the programs for his own political gain, claiming that there was no money for hurricane disaster aid because President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had spent it all on helping immigrants — and Fox’s propagandists and the rest of the Trumpist media chimed in. The Biden administration and mainstream news outlets had debunked these lies, but Pergram’s scoop revealed that House Republicans — a source Fox viewers would be more likely to trust — knew they were false.

Fox’s response over the 24 hours after Pergram posted about the fact sheet provides an instructive case study about how the network functions:

1. On Wednesday morning, Fox News continued to push the falsehood on Fox & Friends, with contributor Miranda Devine claiming that “FEMA was handing out money to illegal migrants instead of keeping it for hurricane victims.”
2. At around the same time on Fox Business, anchor Maria Bartiromo appeared to reference the House Republican memo Pergram obtained — but only to attack it, asking House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) whether his colleagues were “lying” (“It’s all FEMA money,” he replied in part).
3. Pergram did not appear on either network until the lower-rated midday programs — and his packaged report did not address the immigrant funding misinformation that Fox had spread. 
4. On The Five, Jessica Tarlov and Jeanine Pirro sparred inconclusively without mentioning the GOP fact sheet over whether Trump’s claims about disaster aid money going to immigrants was a lie. Jesse Watters ended the discussion by telling Tarlov, “Americans are dying and you're talking about Donald Trump.” 
5. That evening on Fox’s flagship “news” show, Special Report anchor Bret Baier did not reference the GOP fact sheet but mentioned in passing that there has been a “back and forth about FEMA money going to immigrants, there is a pot, it’s just different than the disaster pot where the money comes from.”
6. The network’s high-rated evening Trumpist propagandists all continued to claim money that should have gone to disaster aid went instead to migrants on Wednesday night. Laura Ingraham claimed FEMA money had gone to “sheltering migrants” that “should be spent and allocated to shoring up disaster management for Americans, not on illegal aliens.” Watters claimed that “FEMA admitted they wasted a billion on migrants” and that the agency had been “leaving Americans hanging, but bending over backwards to help foreigners who broke into the country.” And Sean Hannity said the Biden administration claimed to be running out of funds for disaster aid after FEMA “distributed more than a billion dollars to house and feed Harris and Biden unvetted illegal immigrants.”

A real news outlet would want to get that information out to ensure that its audience knew the facts. But Fox is a Trumpist propaganda outlet, and they acted instead to reinforce the right-wing media bubble that keeps their viewers from the truth.