Fox News contributor admits US women's soccer team didn't disrespect WW II vet — but blames them anyway

Sarah K. Burris
July 06, 2021


Fox News spent the day after Independence Day attacking the U.S. Women's Soccer team by claiming that they turned away in protest from a World War II veteran who was playing the "National Anthem" on his harmonica.

The problem, however, is that it never happened.

"To be clear, no one turned their back on WWII Veteran Pete DuPré during tonight's anthem," the US Women's National Team (USWNT) tweeted. "Some USWNT players were simply looking at the flag on a pole in one end of the stadium."

Oftentimes the American flag is in a different place than the person singing the national anthem. Other times there are multiple flags flying over an event.

Fox News hosts admitted on Tuesday that the soccer team did not show disrespect toward the veteran -- but contributor Clay Travis still insisted the team was somehow in the wrong because some turned toward the flag instead of toward the veteran playing the "National Anthem."

A CNN fact-check also explained, "In addition to omitting the context about the location of the stadium's flag, the initial tweets and articles did not mention that the national team has a prior connection to DuPré. Some of the players met him during a 2019 trip to the beaches of Normandy and spoke about how touched they were by the experience. DuPré also played the anthem on the harmonica at the team's final game before the 2019 World Cup."

"The players all love Pete, thanked him individually after the game and signed a ball for him," the US Soccer communications team said in a tweet.

The CNN story calls out The Daily Caller, Canadian website The Post Millennial, commentator David J. Harris Jr., commentator Nick Adams, former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer and commentator Dinesh D'Souza, all of whom lied about the incident and spread the lie across the web.

They actually met with the veteran to give him props and thank him hours before the right attacked him.

"A huge percentage of American sports fans totally think it's believable," Travis said. "It's unfortunately a sign of where we are that so many of us just presume that level of disrespect."

Other right-wing outlets also scrambled to change things and figure out a way to continue to attack the women, despite being wrong about the story.

The video can be seen here: