Presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) doubled down on her criticism of Fox News’ coverage of abortion and women’s health care in a statement to BuzzFeed News a day after her Fox town hall, urging the network to be “responsible for truth and fact.”
“I wanted to make this point clear that this issue about women’s reproductive freedom has been deeply distorted by commentators on Fox News that are trying to create this myth that decisions about reproductive care and the rights of a woman to decide when she’s having kids and how many she’s having, and under what circumstances she’s having them, is somehow an issue about infanticide,” she said. “Because it’s not. [Infanticide is] illegal, it’s a red herring, and it’s just not true. So I want to talk about truth and I want to speak truth to power and I believe that Fox News has to be responsible for truth and fact.”
The statement follows a progressive moment for her 2020 campaign when during her Fox News town hall, she made similar remarks about Fox’s “false narrative” coverage of abortion. Fox News host Chris Wallace interrupted her, suggesting it was not “very polite” for her to criticize the network that invited her to the town hall.
Gillibrand’s campaign seized on that remark to bolster her image among female voters, even adding the phrase “not ‘very polite'” to her Twitter bio.
