For Fox's Kelly, The Truth About Welfare Reform Is Not Worth A Lot

Fox host Megyn Kelly let Lou Dobbs promote the bogus narrative being pushed by Fox News and Mitt Romney's campaign that President Obama's administration is stripping work requirements from welfare reform, even though she noted shortly after the segment that the claim has been debunked by fact-checking organizations.

After the Obama administration announced that it would comply with governors' requests for more flexibility in administering work requirements for people receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) benefits, the right-wing media immediately went on the attack, claiming Obama was gutting the work requirements that were passed as part of President Clinton's 1996 welfare reform.

On America Live, when Kelly asked Fox Business host Lou Dobbs for “the truth” about the issue, Dobbs agreed that Obama was gutting welfare reform “by fiat” and claimed he “wants to enlarge the level of dependency in this country of the federal government even farther and wants to do so with those who are so dependent, unencumbered with any sense of responsibility.” Dobbs' claim is one that has been pushed by Fox News incessantly over the past few weeks and was even adopted by the Romney campaign despite the fact that Romney himself requested similar waivers as governor of Massachusetts.

But later in the show, after letting Dobbs push the dishonest right-wing narrative on the welfare waivers, Kelly noted that “for what it's worth” the fact-checking website PolitiFact “rated that claim with a 'pants on fire' rating a few days ago.”