A Trump Cabinet member's wife drew backlash with a claim about children killed in war that critics branded an "outrageous lie."
Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, whose husband Sean Duffy serves as President Donald Trump's transportation secretary, claimed Saturday that Ukraine has killed "a million kids on the Russian side," according to a clip shared by journalist Aaron Rupar.
Campos-Duffy did not specify to what figure she was referring. Critics suggested the "kids" in question were Russian soldiers sent to fight in the war Moscow launched with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and her remarks quickly drew condemnation online from journalists, former intelligence officials and Russia analysts.
"Outrageous lie," blasted Jeffrey Evan Gold, an attorney and legal analyst, in a post on X. "Russian soldiers are not kids. And Putin did that."
"You can see where this is going," remarked The Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis.
"What an insane, defamatory lie," railed HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte.
"Lost count of how many bits of misinformation and completely false claims were made in this short Fox News clip," lamented Christopher Miller, the chief Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times.
"By 'kids,' I assume she means soldiers from an occupying force that has been bombing, raping and torturing its [way] across Ukraine," suggested Russian-born national columnist Cathy Young. "Disgraceful."
"This is a joke," fumed national security analyst and former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos.
"So Ukrainians are now monsters," bristled Kate Bohuslavska, a Ukrainian social media personality who runs the popular account Kate from Kharkiv. "What's next, they will sanction us? Help Russia bomb Ukraine?"
"Sean Duffy's wife in particular seems *aggressively* wrong about Russia and Ukraine on a regular basis," chided disinformation researcher and popular blogger Jim Stewartson. "Like it's her job to flip the narrative upside down."
"Rachel Campos-Duffy is consistently one of the most ignorant people on television on the most criminally-dishonest platform in the history of media," political strategist Jon Evans sounded off. "Add the fact that Russia has infiltrated the Republican Party, and it's all very dangerous Kremlin propaganda."