Fox News and Fox Business have falsely linked Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Tim Walz, their campaign, or their policies to socialism, communism, or Marxism at least 466 times since July 23, the day after Harris became the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee.

The obvious smears have been repeatedly debunked.

The attacks extended to Walz when Harris selected him as her running mate, with Fox connecting him to China to claim he’s a communist candidate. And the attacks ramped up significantly following an economic policy speech from Harris, with Fox repeatedly mischaracterizing her proposals.

Fox News accounted for 263 of the claims while Fox Business accounted for 203.

Fox networks' hosts and anchors most often pushed the claims of socialism, led by Maria Bartiromo (32 claims), Sean Hannity (31), Elizabeth MacDonald (20), Larry Kudlow (19), Jesse Watters (17), and Stuart Varney (15). 

Mornings with Maria Bartiromo (63) had the most claims of any individual program over the period, with Hannity (49), Kudlow (44), and The Evening Edit (40) close behind. Many of Fox News' so-called “news” programs also repeated the ginned up attack, with at least 52 claims over the period.

Fox News and Fox Business parroted the narrative on 49 of the 50 days reviewed by Media Matters.

Fox's smears of Harris and her campaign ran the gamut, from comparing her to Fidel Castro and the Sandinistas to calling her a “dangerous Marxist,” and even absurdly proclaiming that “these two economically frankly illiterate radicals with a penchant for literal communism are promising to drive our economy right off the cliff.”

Former President Donald Trump repeated Fox's fabricated narrative during the September 10 presidential debate, falsely insisting, “She's a Marxist. Everybody knows she's a Marxist.”

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel and Fox Business for any of the terms “vice president,” “VP,” “Kamala,” “Harris,” “governor,” “Walz,” or “walls” within close proximity of any of the terms “Soviet,” “commie,” “comrade,” or “Maduro” or any variations of any of the terms “socialist,” “communist,” or “Marxist” from July 23, 2024, the day after Kamala Harris secured enough delegates to become the Democratic presidential nominee, through September 10, 2024. 

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

We then reviewed all claims for whether they suggested that Harris or Walz are communists, socialists, or Marxists; have communist, socialist, or Marxist sympathies; have ties or sympathies to the Soviet Union or the Chinese Communist Party; advocate for communist, socialist, or Marxist policies; want to turn America into a socialist, Marxist, or communist country; or whether they describe any aspect of their policy platform as communist, socialist, or Marxist.