Last Friday, Fox News Digital, the cable network’s news website, was forced to remove a story that “inaccurately attributed” a statement to former HHS Secretary Tom Price, in which Price allegedly said he would not support his former boss Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Trump could “kiss” his “butt,” Mediaite reported.
The story, headlined “Former Trump Cabinet member tells him to “kiss” his “butt,” included an emailed statement purportedly sent from Tom Price to Fox saying there is “no way” he would support Donald Trump in 2024 after Trump fired him.
In the phony statement Price purportedly said the only thing Trump “has more of than fake tan is narcissism.” The emailed statement closed with, “He can kiss my big medical butt.”
Shortly after the story was published, Washington Post reporter Dan Diamond said in a tweet that sources close to Tom Price disputed the purported statement.
According to the sources, Price never heard from Fox News Digital about the story and the quoted statement did not come from him.
About two hours after the story was first published, Diamond tweeted that it had been removed from the website. In its place, a Correction was posted, noting that the story “inaccurately attributed” the quote to Price and had been retracted.
But in the short time that the Fox News article was live, several other outlets, including The Hill and Raw Story picked it up.
The Hill updated its article to note that the Fox story had been retracted.
Raw Story did the same thing.
The writer of the Fox story was written by “College Associate” Elizabeth Troutman.
Troutman made no mention of the retracted story on her Twitter account.
