Getty Fox News host Neil Cavuto cut away from Donald Trump's speech on Thursday to fact check his comments on the Obama administration.
During President Donald Trump’s speech from the White House on Thursday, July 16, where he was slated to announce a rollback of the National Environmental Policy Act, Fox News host Neil Cavuto cut away from the live feed to fact check the president on his comments about the former administration. Afterward, Fox News never returned to the live feed.
While Trump discussed his changes to the law, which aims to decrease the number of infrastructure projects that will be subject to federal National Environmental Policy Act review, Cavuto interrupted and said, “I do want to clarify a couple of things. He said that no president in history has cut regulations as he has – that is true. But I think he might have mischaracterized the regulations that were added under Barack Obama. They were largely financial related.
“You might recall we had this little financial meltdown and much of those regulations were geared to preventing banks from ever investing in things like risking mortgage securities, pooling them and selling them off … so more than half the regulations the Obama administration added were of that bent post the meltdown.”
“Another quick point,” Cavuto continued, “when the president referred to the ‘horrible results’ or the ‘disappointing results’ of the prior administration for adding those regulations … the unemployment rate did, under Barack Obama, go down from a high 10% to a 4.7%. Trump, of course, set that even lower, eventually getting us down to 3.5% unemployment rate.
“But I didn’t want to leave you with the impression that during those eight years, when Obama first came to office and we were bleeding about a million jobs a month, that that was a standard fair and that characterized the whole eight years. The recovery itself might’ve been weak but we were coming off a meltdown.”
Cavuto concluded, saying, “Again, both presidents can crow about the growth that they saw, but it was not a disaster under Barack Obama. Not only did the Dow essentially triple during his tenure … most companies did very very well, but Americans did very very, well.”
Fox News Viewers Voiced Their Anger at Cavuto Cutting Away From Trump’s Speech on Twitter
Fox News viewers hoping to watch Trump’s speech in full were disappointed and shared their ire on Twitter. Following the incident, video of Cavuto’s cutaway started going viral.
Avid Fox News viewers claimed to be done with the network, too frustrated by Cavuto’s need to fact check Trump to continue watching the news on their channel.
This Isn’t The First Time Cavuto Has Controversially Fact Checked Trump on Fox News
Back in May, Trump made a surprising announcement during a roundtable discussion with restaurant executives in which he declared that he was taking hydroxychloroquine every day as a precaution against coronavirus.
“You’d be surprised at how many people are taking it,” Trump said, “especially the front line workers before you catch it. I happen to be taking it. I am taking it – hydroxychloroquine, right now, yeah. A couple of weeks ago, I started taking it because I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories.”
While Fox News is typically supportive of Trump, Cavuto appeared to be stunned by Trump’s announcement on hydroxychloroquine. Cavuto said that those with respiratory and heart ailments who took this drug actually died.
Cavuto stressed, “If you are in a risky population here, and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus, or worst-case scenario, you’re dealing with the virus in this vulnerable population … it will kill you. I cannot stress enough. This will kill you.”
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