‘Fox & Friends’ ignore network’s own reporting on Gianforte assault to cover for GOP candidate

Although Fox News posted an eye witness report of Republican Congressional candidate Greg Gianforte's assault on reporter Ben Jacobs, Fox & Friends covered the incident on Thursday without mentioning its own employees' account.

Via Media Matters, Fox's Jillian Mele reported about the Gianforte assault without making it clear that his campaign's talking points about the incident were completely contradicted by her own network's reporting.

Fox reporter Alicia Acuna, who witnessed the assault first hand on Wednesday night, explained that "Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him." Acuna also pointed out that "at no point did any of us who witnessed this assault see Jacobs show any form of physical aggression toward Gianforte."

On Fox & Friends, however, Mele simply repeated the Gianforte campaign's talking points by noting that "the candidate says that reporter tried to push a phone in his face before this happened" and that "Gianforte's campaign says the men both fell."

The network also ran a chyron that simply read, "Gianforte blames reporter for incident."

Later on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade did reference Acuna's report on the incident -- but he never talked about its contents or the fact that it completely contradicted the Gianforte campaign's spin.

Watch the video below.