Fox News has a history of spreading white nationalist rhetoric, including the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which warns of a nefarious plot to “replace” white citizens with nonwhite immigrants in order to ultimately threaten “the political power and culture of white people.” This theory has led to multiple acts of violence, such as the 2022 shooting in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store and the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Five ran 5 episodes containing white nationalist rhetoric, including one on January 10 in which co-host Jesse Watters claimed that Democrats “were literally replacing American kids” after migrants were sheltered at a New York City public school. Later in the segment, co-host Jeanine Pirro warned that Democrats would give migrants “a license sooner or later” and work visas to entice them to vote. Pirro continued, “They are now talking about them voting. You want to know why? Because they're going to vote. That's why they're here.” Her co-host, Jessica Tarlov, even clarified that Pirro was endorsing the “replacement theory,” noting that the immigrants will “vote blue.”

Fox hosts and guests have also pushed the white nationalist grievance that migrants entering the country constitute an “invasion” of national sovereignty. According to the conspiracy theory, the “invasion” is sanctioned by Democrats and “globalists”, with the intention of providing migrants pathways to citizenship in order to vote Democratic.

Jesse Watters Primetime, which the network elevated last July to the prime-time slot vacated by the network’s previous top white supremacist, Tucker Carlson, aired at least 11 immigration segments that contained white nationalist discourse, the most of any prime-time host.

Watters peddled “invasion” fear tactics when he declared that “foreign nationals are breaching our shores by boat and then sprinting through the beaches and just disappearing onto the streets.” He concluded, “What you're seeing on the screen is what every country in the world calls an invasion.” This iteration of the great replacement conspiracy theory inspired the 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas, where a shooter targeted Latino Walmart shooters because of fears of a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

Closely following Jesse Watters Primetime, Sean Hannity’s prime-time show featured white nationalist talking points in 10 immigration segments. Hannity further pushed invasion rhetoric when he hosted conspiracist John Solomon to discuss a letter by former “high-ranking FBI officials” that argued current immigration was tantamount to an “invasion.” Hannity further entrenched himself in white nationalist rhetoric when he theorized that the migrants represented a threat to the country. He asked, “Do you think they're all coming here because they want a better life or are the odds likely 100 percent the terrorist cells have now entered our country as a result of unvetted Joe Biden illegal immigrants?”

Overall, Fox News’ evening programming featured white nationalist rhetoric in 26% of total immigration segments.

Media Matters searched our internal database of all original, weekday programming on Fox News Channel for all original episodes of The Five, Special Report with Bret Baier, The Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime, Hannity, and Gutfeld! for segments that analysts determined to be about immigration from January 1, 2024, through January 31, 2024.

We included segments, which we defined as instances when immigration was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of immigration. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed immigration with one another.

We did not include mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned immigration without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, or teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about immigration scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We then reviewed the identified segments for whether any speaker in the segment made a claim associated with the white nationalist rhetoric.

We defined a claim as a block of uninterrupted speech from a single speaker. For host monologues, headlines, and correspondent reports, we defined a claim as the block of speech between read quotes and played clips. We did not include the speech within read quotes or played clips unless a speaker in the segment positively affirmed the speech either directly before or after the quote was read or the clip was played.

We divided claims associated with white nationalist rhetoric into three categories:

1. Immigrants, migrants, or refugees would dilute national heritage.
2. Immigration will reduce white Americans' electoral power.
3. Ethnic minorities will replace U.S.-born citizens.

Claims suggesting that immigrants, migrants, or refugees would dilute national heritage included statements suggesting that society should be bound by common ancestry, culture, or language; making appeals to common ancestry, culture, or language; suggesting that multiculturalism will destroy the national identity; or suggesting that diversity is not a strength or questioning whether diversity is a strength.

Claims suggesting that immigration will reduce white Americans' electoral power included statements suggesting that immigrants will vote for Democrats and connecting that to policy intentions, that Democrats are encouraging immigration to expand the party’s voting bloc, or that a cabal of Jewish elites are orchestrating pro-immigration policies.

Claims suggesting that ethnic minorities will replace U.S.-born citizens included statements suggesting that liberals want to increase the birthrate of immigrants or decrease the birthrate of white people; that foreign-born workers in the U.S. are replacing U.S.-born workers; that whites and other ethnicities should live or govern themselves separately; that ethnic minorities will replace white people; that society is anti-white or that whiteness is under assault; that immigrants, refugees, or migrants are criminals or invaders or describing immigration as an invasion; or that migrants or immigrants are a threat to America.