Last night, Fox News host Sean Hannity misrepresented an unflattering report on Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill.” But Fox News’ online coverage contradicted his blatantly false assertion.
On the June 4 edition of Hannity, the Fox host claimed that the Congressional Budget Office projected that the spending bill would “reduce the deficit by 2.5 trillion over ten years.” Hannity even marveled over the estimate because “usually the CBO is pretty negative when it comes to estimating the cost of Republican policies."
In fact, the exact opposite is true. The AP wrote that “President Donald Trump’s big bill in Congress would unleash trillions in tax cuts and slash spending, but also spike deficits by $2.4 trillion over the decade and leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance.”
Fox’s own reporting also debunks Hannity’s claim. A Fox article quoted the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s assessment of the CBO’s projection:
‘Based on CBO’s estimate, the House-passed bill includes roughly $5.3 trillion of tax cuts and spending partially offset by $2.9 trillion of revenue increases and spending cuts," a CRFB statement said. "Most significantly, the policies put forward by the Ways & Means Committee would increase deficits by $3.8 trillion, on net, while the policies in the Energy & Commerce title would reduce deficits by $1.1 trillion. With interest, the bill would add nearly $3.0 trillion to the debt through 2034 – or $5.0 trillion if various temporary provisions are made permanent.’
‘OBBBA (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) would add far too much to the debt as written and could lead to far more fiscal damage than reported if temporary provisions are extended as intended,’ the group said.
Earlier this week, Fox & Friends co-host and Hannity’s fiancée Ainsley Earhardt admitted that Trump’s bill would cause the deficit to increase, though she quickly downplayed the increase by highlighting Trump promises like no tax on tips.
Update (6/5): This article was briefly updated with Trump's post discussing the CBO score for tariffs. We have removed the update as it's not clear Trump was talking about the same numbers as Hannity.
