Fox News corrects segments on Biden's nonexistent plan to limit Americans' red-meat consumption to 4 pounds per year
- Fox News issued a correction on Monday over segments about nonexistent red-meat quotas.
- The segments were part of a broader conservative media trend on Biden taking away Americans’ burgers.
- The president does not, in fact, have a climate plan that involves capping red-meat consumption.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
President Joe Biden is not coming for your burgers, Fox News anchor John Roberts clarified on Monday.
Last Friday, the network ran several segments based on a University of Michigan study that had nothing to do with the Biden administration.
Fox framed some of its coverage on the study around Biden imposing caps on individual red-meat consumption in an effort to combat the climate crisis, a proposal that the president has never said he supports.
“On Friday, we told you about a study from the University of Michigan to give some perspective on President Biden’s ambitious climate change goals,” Roberts said. “That research, from 2020, found that cutting back how much red meat people eat would have a drastic impact on harmful greenhouse gas emissions. A graphic and a script incorrectly implied that it was part of Biden’s plan for dealing with climate change. That is not the case.”
The Daily Mail lumped in the study with Biden’s climate agenda, kicking off a slew of misleading and false stories from conservative media outlets and subsequent fact checks.
Many of the reactions seized upon a limit of four pounds of red meat per year, which was a figure settled upon in the study for significant reductions in emissions but not something Biden has proposed.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, tweeted a call for Biden to “stay out of my kitchen” in falsely citing a figure of a mandatory 90% reduction in meat reduction across the country.
Some of the banners Fox ran included wording such as “bye-bye burgers under Biden’s climate plan” and “90% of red meat out with Biden climate plan.”
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale reported, the initial Daily Mail story proved to be the catalyst for Republican lawmakers and conservative media personalities sharing misinformation through the weekend.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, poked fun at the meaty news cycle ahead of Sunday night’s Oscar awards, alluding to a Larry Kudlow segment on the Fox Business Channel lamenting the prospect of Biden forcing Americans to drink “plant-based beer.”
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