Fox’s Meghan McCain: Fear Of Refugees Is “Completely Rational And Based In Reality”

Written by Media Matters Staff

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On Fox’s Outnumbered, co-hosts Lisa Boothe and Meghan McCain alleged that it is “completely rational to have fear” about refugees because of “incompetency” within intelligence agencies. McCain pointed to Germany, which has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees, saying the country “ran out of pepper spray because ... there are so many sexual assaults happening from refugees” and that fear of refugees is thus “completely rational and based in reality.” Fox’s John Bolton claimed there is “evidence all around us” that the U.S. immigration system is “dangerous.” Fox News routinely invites guests on to fearmonger about refugees, often echoing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s anti-refugee rhetoric, even though such fears are not based in any fact. According to the CATO Institute, “the terrorist threat from Syrian refugees … is hyperbolically over-exaggerated and we have very little to fear.” From the September 20 edition of Fox News’ Outnumbered:

LISA BOOTHE (CO-HOST): [President Obama's] own administration has stated the concerns of letting the Syrian refugees in. You have the CIA director, John Brennan, who testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that ISIS would infiltrate the West through Syrian migrants and refugees. You also have FBI Director James Comey, who said before a House Homeland Security Committee that we can't thoroughly vet the refugees. Then you have this incompetency with the 800 immigrants that were given citizenship from countries of national security concerns. You also have Department of Homeland Security officials testifying before Congress admitting that they can't find individuals whose visas were revoked because of possible links to terrorism. They can't find them in the United States. Of course we have to question the government's competency here.

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MEGHAN MCCAIN (CO-HOST): I think what is so exhausting about this specific issue is, it didn't have to be like this. There was a red line that our president said he would do something about once [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad used chemical weapons. He did and then our president chose to do nothing. So this has spiraled out of control and the blood is on the administration's hands. All that being said, it is completely rational to have fear about this. See what's going on in Germany. They have ran out of pepper spray because so many women need to arm themselves because there are so many sexual assaults happening from refugees. So this is completely rational and based in reality. That being said, when you talk to a lot of liberals about this, automatically I'm a heartless conservative that doesn't want to help refugees, that doesn't want to help children in the Middle East. That's not true. We just want to protect our national security as well. I think this is a mess. I think nothing good is going to come from it. And I think no matter what the answer, we've got a lot of bad problems in our future.

HARRIS FAULKNER (CO-HOST): The big question, it's a mess for sure. We know that the immigration situation is one that needs to be looked at. Is it a dangerous mess and you say yes?

JOHN BOLTON: It is absolutely dangerous and we see the evidence all around us.