Fox News came under fire after airing a graphic on Tuesday night that appeared to call US President Joe Biden a “wannabe dictator.”
The graphic aired hours after former President Donald Trump”s arraignment in Florida in the classified documents case.
The network had aired a split screen of footage from Biden”s remarks at a Juneteenth event at the White House, and from Trump”s speech in New Jersey, in which the former President blamed Biden for the indictment against him.
Around 9:00 p.m. ET, the text at the bottom of the screen on Fox News read, “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”
In a statement to NBC News on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the network said: “The chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed.”
The spokesperson did not respond to an email that asked whether there would be any consequences for the staff members behind the text in the graphic.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre hit back at Fox News when asked about the chyron during the press briefing on Wednesday.
“So, there are probably about 787 million things that I can say about this, that was wrong about what we saw last night, but I don”t think I”m going to get into it,” she was quoted as having told reporters.
Her comments about “787 million” were in reference to the settlement in April between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News, in which the network agreed to pay $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit.
