When President Donald Trump informed reporters on Sept. 5 he’d began sending the Nationwide Guard to Portland, Oregon, he mentioned it was due to one thing he noticed on tv.
He mentioned the town was being destroyed by paid agitators. “What they’ve achieved to that place, it’s like residing in hell,” he mentioned, a remark that turned an web meme as some Portland residents juxtaposed it with tranquil pictures of the town.
Trump didn’t say which channel he watched; he mentioned at one level he noticed one thing “at present” and at one other “final night time.”
The night earlier than, on Sept. 4, Fox Information aired a two-and-a-half-minute section spotlighting protests outdoors a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement discipline workplace in Portland. Related footage aired the morning of Trump’s remarks. The president went on to announce Sept. 27 on Reality Social that he would ship troops, saying that he was “authorizing Full Pressure, if vital.”
He later mentioned he’d informed Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, that “until they’re taking part in false tapes, this regarded like World Conflict II. Your home is burning down.”
ProPublica examined months of Fox Information’ protection and reviewed greater than 700 video clips posted to social media by protesters, counterprotesters and others within the three months previous the Sept. 4 broadcast.
The assessment discovered that the information community repeatedly offered a deceptive image of what was occurring in Portland.
As The Guardian and The Oregonian/OregonLive have reported, Fox Information on Sept. 4 used footage from the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd and mentioned it was from 2025. We discovered two clear circumstances from that night time in addition to one which appeared to match a scene filmed at a key website of the 2020 protests. Fox additionally mislabeled two different dates of actions proven on display screen, and one broadcast implied {that a} protest from elsewhere was occurring in Portland.
Fox Information chyrons about Portland the week of Trump’s remarks carried phrases like “violent demonstrators,” “protesters riot,” “anti-I.C.E. Portland rioters” and “war-like protests.” One host mentioned protesters had been attacking federal officers.
This portrayal of protesters as routinely instigating violence or rioting was additionally deceptive.
As ProPublica reported final week, most clashes between protesters and police earlier than the Fox Information section didn’t end in any felony prices or arrests alleging protesters dedicated violence. What’s extra, based mostly on information releases from federal and native authorities, prices and arrests for assault, arson or destruction of property had been nearly totally confined to a interval that ended the night time of July 4.
Movies after that date captured quite a few pictures of federal officers forcefully transferring in on protesters with out corresponding felony prices alleging protester violence.
A spokesperson for Fox Information didn’t reply to ProPublica’s requests for remark.
The Division of Homeland Safety didn’t reply requests to touch upon its officers’ techniques.
White Home spokesperson Abigail Jackson mentioned of motion on the bottom in Portland: “This isn’t a peaceable protest that’s below management, like many on the left have claimed, it’s radical violence. President Trump is taking lawful motion to guard federal regulation enforcement officers and handle the out-of-control violence that native residents have complained about and Democrat leaders have did not cease.”
Right here’s how Fox Information’ protection of the Portland story was deceptive.
Fox Information Stated It Was 2025. It Wasn’t.
Protests in 2020 within the wake of Floyd’s homicide by a police officer attracted giant, generally violent crowds to Portland — together with a federal regulation enforcement response approved by Trump.
The protests outdoors the ICE facility have sometimes been far smaller. Nonetheless, Fox spliced footage from 2020 into its protection this 12 months and claimed it was from 2025.
The Fox Information correspondent within the section that aired the night time Trump was watching TV mentioned: “On this night time in late June, police used tear fuel.”
The accompanying picture seems to be not from the ICE constructing however from the federal courthouse in downtown Portland, greater than a mile away. An almost similar scene was proven in a Fox Information video 5 years earlier. Footage that aired Sept. 4, shot at a barely totally different angle, blurs out spots the place graffiti was seen on the constructing in Fox’s July 2020 broadcast.
Virtually instantly after displaying the courthouse scene, the section cuts to a different picture because the correspondent says, “federal police used tear fuel and flashbangs.”
On display screen at that second is a U.S. Navy veteran who was pepper-sprayed and repeatedly struck with a baton. But it surely didn’t occur in September 2025. The video was posted on social media on July 18, 2020.
The Fox Information section concerning the ICE protests quickly exhibits an American flag burning.
That picture was posted on social media July 16, 2020.
The situation: the bottom of a downtown Portland statue greater than a mile away from the ICE constructing the place protests are occurring in 2025.
On the webpage for its Sept. 4 video section, Fox Information added an editor’s word at the least two weeks later: “This video accommodates footage from protests in Portland in 2020 and 2025.”
“Nonetheless Going On”
After mislabeling 2020 occasions as 2025, Fox’s Sept. 4 night broadcast explicitly drew a connection between the 2 durations.
“The protest chaos, which started with riots aimed toward social justice in 2020, has severely broken Portland’s repute,” the correspondent mentioned.
The dramatic footage at this second exhibits fires on the street and was broadcast on Fox on Aug. 19, 2020, the day after a crowd smashed by way of home windows and set objects on hearth within the headquarters for the federal government of Multnomah County, the place Portland is positioned.
We don’t know for sure which broadcast acquired Trump desirous about Portland. The White Home didn’t reply to questions on what Trump watched. However the president mentioned on Sept. 5 that what he’d seen about Portland on TV was “unbelievable.”
“I didn’t know that was nonetheless happening,” he mentioned. “This has been happening for years.”
The fact: Portland’s 2020 social justice protests, which resulted in tons of of arrests and continued for months, turned sporadic by early 2021. Protests in years since have led to occasional property harm, however nothing in Portland has matched the dimensions of occasions that adopted Floyd’s loss of life.
Portland police Chief Bob Day mentioned at a Sept. 29 press convention that the town had been inaccurately portrayed by way of the lens of the protests in 2020 and 2021.
“What’s truly occurring, and the response we’re seeing each from Portlanders and from the Portland Police Bureau,” Day mentioned, “is just not in step with that nationwide narrative. And it’s irritating.”
A Riot That Wasn’t
In a Sept. 2 section that includes the video from a day earlier, anchor Invoice Hemmer mentioned it exhibits “riots raging.” Anchor Hint Gallagher teased one other Sept. 2 information section by as soon as once more displaying the video, saying, “It’s a riot outdoors a Portland ICE facility.”
The Sept. 4 section exhibits Julie Parrish, an legal professional for a neighbor of the ICE facility, accusing Portland police of claiming, “Meh, we’re simply gonna let violent rioters do that for 80 straight nights.”
The bodily habits of protesters that was captured on the video is just not violent. The digicam as a substitute exhibits federal brokers advancing on them. Within the moments earlier than officers tossed munitions into the group, movies present, one protester was blowing bubbles. The Portland police didn’t declare a riot, a authorized designation that permits for an elevated police use of power. (They declared a riot simply as soon as, a police spokesperson mentioned, on June 14.)
The Sept. 1 protest had “little to no power,” based on an inner Portland police abstract, earlier than federal officers dispersed the group to gather a prop guillotine that had been introduced. Katie Daviscourt, a Trump-aligned commentator who filmed the clips, famous on X that protesters had been having dance events and that their important issues had been “not leaving restricted areas, burning a flag, and possessing a lethal object (guillotine).”
ProPublica discovered the same sample for the three months earlier than Fox’s Sept. 4 broadcast: clashes that on most days and nights had no felony allegations of protester violence to clarify them.
After dozens of arrests and prices had been introduced in June by way of July 4, federal prosecutors accused simply three folks of crimes on the ICE constructing within the roughly two months main as much as Fox’s Sept. 4 broadcast.
Throughout that very same two-month timeframe, ProPublica’s assessment discovered quite a few situations of police utilizing power: movies from greater than 20 days or nights with federal officers grabbing, shoving, pepper-spraying, tackling, firing on or utilizing different munitions on protesters.
No native arrests or federal felony prices had been introduced on today or nights, and solely a handful of dates corresponded with incidents of protester aggression later asserted by federal authorities of their authorized case for sending troops.
Requested whether or not Fox Information precisely represented her footage, Daviscourt mentioned: “I stand by my 4 months of correct reporting.”
Parrish informed ProPublica she had collected proof that “exhibits ongoing and protracted exercise” outdoors the ability that below statute and police directive “could be thought-about riotous, illegal meeting and/or disorderly conduct.” She declined to share this proof, saying it was privileged as a part of her shopper’s file.
Her lawsuit on behalf of a neighbor residing close to the ICE facility, which sought to require police to implement Portland’s noise ordinance, was dismissed.
The Reappearing Neighbor
A Sept. 5 “Fox & Buddies” section confirmed a neighbor from an condo constructing confronting protesters over noise, shouting at protesters: “Flip that (bleep) down, it’s midnight! … We the folks want sleep!”
Fox mentioned it occurred Tuesday, which might have been Sept. 2. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt mentioned, “This has been happening for months now, however plenty of this since Labor Day,” because the video proven on display screen sandwiches footage of the neighbor between different scenes from the Labor Day protest.
“It is a chaotic metropolis,” co-host Brian Kilmeade mentioned.
The following day, the clip of the neighbor appeared once more on Fox Information. This time, the community mentioned the footage was from Wednesday, or Sept. 3.
In actuality, the confrontation was captured on video months earlier than. Daviscourt revealed the video on June 29 on X.
On the 2 September nights that Fox mentioned the neighbor’s confrontation occurred, ProPublica’s assessment discovered no movies of violent clashes posted on social media, and federal authorities introduced no arrests.
For instance, based on a Portland police e mail from 11:22 p.m. on Sept. 3: “There are nonetheless about 20 folks hanging round however solely 4 had been even on the sidewalk in entrance of the constructing.”
Misrepresentations Proceed After Trump’s Guard Order
On Sept. 28, the day Trump’s order was carried out, a Fox Information broadcast performed a clip of Kotek saying that Guard troops weren’t wanted in Portland, then instantly reduce to a clip of a busy scene of protesters clashing with police.
“Want she may see a few of these pictures,” the anchor mentioned. Sarcastically, as a co-anchor chuckled, she added: “Take a look at that. Only a peaceable protest.”
A small field on the display screen confirmed the footage wasn’t from Oregon.
It was from Illinois.
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