Fox Reporter in Ukraine Brutally Fact Checks Host's Ukraine Coverage Hot Take Live on Air

In addition to its regular disinformation, the conservative Fox News network has broadcast pro-Putin talking points in the wake of his recent invasion of Ukraine, the fledgling democratic nation that broke from the U.S.S.R. in 1991.

Far-right Fox host Tucker Carlson repeatedly defended Putin for years, claiming he was rooting for Russia and suggesting that American democrats were more dangerous than the authoritarian leader. Retired Army Colonel and racist conspiracy theorist Douglas MacGregor, a Fox contributor and frequent guest on Carlson's show, has also repeatedly advocated for Putin even after brutal fact checks from Fox national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin.

But it was right-wing Fox pundit Greg Gutfeld who most recently attempted to dismiss the conflict in Ukraine, only to be called out by someone who knows what they're talking about.

It started when Gutfeld claimed the media was intentionally overdramatizing Russian aggression toward Ukraine to boost profits.

He said:

"I can feel the galvanizing force of these stories that kind of have sped up and are accumulating to create a narrative and they only go in one direction. And I understand why they only go in one direction, because it's the invaded that experience the atrocity, right? And that's all we're going to see. However, I can't help that this is a lot like other stories that we've gone through in the digital age in which an image is taken and then played over and over and over again to create some kind of emotional response out of you, because that makes a profit for news companies, right?"

Gutfeld went on to cite videos of police brutality, falsely claiming that the brutality sparking outrage among Americans, especially in the summer of 2020, was "the mundane reality that police were interacting with suspects in high-crime areas and that led to certain kinds of problems."

After Gutfeld concluded by asking why media outlets airing atrocities in Ukraine couldn't be called "pro-war," Fox correspondent Benjamin Hall, who is currently on the ground in Ukraine, refuted Gutfeld's talking points.

Watch below.

Hall said:

“Speaking as someone on the ground, I want to say that this is not the media trying to drum up some emotional response, This is absolutely what’s happening. From the cities of Kharkiv to Mariupol to Chernigov, they are being absolutely flattened. And from all corners of this country, people are fleeing for safety. In the city of Mariupol, people are drinking water from puddles because the Russian forces haven’t allowed them to get out. When they have tried to get out, they are shelled, and don’t take it from my word, take it from the words of some of those who are trying to flee."

He then directed the segment to weeping Ukrainian refugees attempting to flee.

Responding, Gutfeld cheekily asked cohost Dana Perino if he should address Hall's "cheap attack" on him, emphasizing that his concern "has always been when the narrative creates a story that bolsters one side, that is out of its element, will you create more suffering?”

Even far-right Fox host Jeanine Pirro was stunned, asking Gutfeld "Two sides? You've got Putin who attacked Ukraine. What are the two sides? Is it justified?" Gutfeld accused her and his co-hosts of oversimplifying the situation, but stopped short of saying Russia was justified in its attack.

Social media users were baffled and annoyed at Gutfeld's bogus talking point.

They largely sided with Hall.

Others called Fox out for its own hypocrisy.

At least two million people have fled Ukraine since Putin's invasion. Among them? Gutfeld's own mother in law, according to the Guardian.