Fox News airs old footage of Trump honoring US troops
- Published on March 9, 2026 at 22:21
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
Fox News has apologized for repeatedly airing old footage of Donald Trump in its coverage of the return of the first six US soldiers killed in the war with Iran, after the president faced some criticism for wearing a commemorative Trump-themed baseball cap at the solemn event. The video the cable network erroneously broadcast was captured during a different dignified transfer ceremony almost three months earlier, honoring troops killed in an attack in Syria.
"President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and secretary (sic) lady Usha Vance attending a dignified transfer to honor the final homecoming of the six US service members killed in Kuwait," said Griff Jenkins, co-host of "Fox & Friends Weekend," during the March 8, 2026 airing of the morning talk show.
Text on the screen dated the footage to the day prior, as the chyron read: "Trump attends dignified transfer of 6 U.S. service members killed in Kuwait."
Jenkins was recapping Trump's attendance as the remains of six slain US troops -- killed in a drone strike in Kuwait the day after the United States and Israel launched a sweeping military campaign against Iran -- were returned to American soil on March 7.
The clip Fox News displayed showed Trump wearing a topcoat and gloves beside Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and saluting a casket carried by soldiers.
"Fox & Friends Weekend" aired the same video again two hours later as co-host Charles Hurt introduced it. The footage ran once more on "Fox News Sunday" above a chyron that said: "Trump offers final salute to the six U.S. service members killed in Kuwait."
Fox News also broadcast the clip on March 7. "The Big Weekend Show" co-host Tomi Lahren described it as showing the "dignified transfer earlier today."
But the footage was from a different ceremony on December 17, 2025, marking the return of two US soldiers and an American civilian who were shot dead in Syria.
Outdated footage
Videos that AFP and other news organizations distributed of the December 2025 event show a matching scene to the one aired by Fox News. A full recording of the ceremony is also hosted on the Pentagon's Defense Visual Information Distribution Service website.
In a March 9, 2026 statement to AFP, a Fox News spokesperson said the network apologizes for using "incorrect footage" and regrets the error. Other Fox News coverage of the return of the troops' bodies from Kuwait, including the network's playback shortly after the ceremony, did show the correct footage.
"Fox News Media programs inadvertently aired file footage from a previous dignified transfer while discussing yesterday's ceremony at Dover Air Force Base," the spokesperson said. "The archival footage was mistakenly used during the video sourcing process."
Jenkins issued a correction on-air, saying his program "inadvertently aired video from an older dignified transfer" and calling it a "mistake." Joey Jones, a co-host of "The Big Weekend Show" with Lahren, also posted on X that the misrepresented footage was an "honest mistake."
At the March 7 event, the president wore a different outfit: a suit and a Trump-branded "USA" baseball cap for sale on the official Trump store. Melania Trump, JD Vance and Usha Vance -- absent in the December 2025 footage -- also stood alongside him, in addition to Hegseth.
The president's hat generated some backlash, including criticism from California Governor Gavin Newsom.
On the campaign trail, Trump attacked former president Joe Biden for checking his watch during the dignified transfer of soldiers from Afghanistan in 2021. Hegseth, then a co-host of "Fox & Friends Weekend," also railed against the Democratic leader over the incident.
Other moments from the December 2025 dignified transfer ceremony were previously misrepresented on social media, in both English and Spanish, prior to the return of the remains of any soldiers killed by Iran's retaliatory strikes.
Read more of AFP's fact-checks about the Middle East war here.
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