News
How a Fox News host’s misleading question about migrant children morphed into a Trump talking point
Former President Donald J. Trump and his surrogates have repeatedly accused the Biden administration of losing tens of thousands of migrant children, distorting, conflating and inflating government statistics.
The misleading claim, now a staple of Mr. Trump’s stump speeches, appears to have originated from Fox News and snowballed. Its evolution shows Mr. Trump’s penchant for exaggeration as well as his symbiotic relationship with the network.
June 2, 2024
Mr. Trump is interviewed on Fox News.
When the Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy told Mr. Trump that the Biden administration had “lost” 80,000 children, Mr. Trump expressed surprise at her ensuing question.
“Will you commit to finding those children?” she asked.
“I haven’t been asked that question, but the answer is yes. It’s a simple answer,” Mr. Trump responded, adding: “Many of them are dead. They have done such a bad job.”
Ms. Campos-Duffy’s claim referred to migrant children who arrive at the border unaccompanied by adults. Under government protocols, the children, once apprehended by border officials, are placed in the care of the Health and Human Services Department’s refugee resettlement office. The office then releases the children to sponsors, sometimes family members, who undergo a background check. The New York Times reported last year that the office, which checks on the children via phone calls, was unable to reach 85,000 children, or about a third of cases, in 2021 and 2022. The Times did not report that the children were “lost,” but that they were more susceptible to exploitative and illegal working conditions.
June 6, 2024
Days later, Mr. Trump invokes the figure at a town hall in Phoenix.
Railing against President Biden’s border policies, Mr. Trump added once again that many children were now “dead” and “if it were me, it would be the biggest story.”
In fact, when Mr. Trump was in office, his administration also tried to contact — and was also unable to reach — thousands of migrant children who had left the refugee office’s care. And there is no evidence that thousands of the children died under either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump.
Under Mr. Trump, the Health and Human Services Department could not reach 19 percent of migrant children (about 1,500) who were placed with sponsors from October to December 2017, or 11.6 percent of children or their sponsors (about 9,200 calls) from August 2018 to December 2020. In comparison, a Biden administration official testified to Congress that 19 percent of the refugee office’s calls to the children or their sponsors went unanswered.
When Democrats accused the Trump administration of “losing” unaccompanied children, the health department said in 2018 that those claims were “completely false” and that sponsors “simply did not respond or could not be reached when this voluntary call was made.”
At the time, a Trump administration official said that there were various reasons sponsors or children might not pick up the phone. They may be hesitant to answer calls from unknown government agents, especially if they have unauthorized status or a fear of traffickers. Sponsors may also simply have different telephone numbers.
June 7, 2024
Mr. Trump repeats the figure in an interview with Dr. Phil.
“We have 88,000 missing children. Now, can you imagine if that were Trump that had 88,000 missing children? 88,000. That’s a holocaust.”
July 9, 2024
Mr. Trump doubles the number
at a rally in Doral, Fla.
“The Biden-Harris administration has lost track of an estimated 150,000 children, many of whom have undoubtedly been raped, trafficked, killed or horribly abused.”
Mr. Trump appeared to extrapolate this figure from government data showing that nearly 400,000 children had been placed with sponsors over the past four years. Assuming that the office was still unable to reach a third of them, that is equivalent to about 133,000 children.
Aug. 22, 2024
A month later, Mr. Trump distorts a new government report to inflate the number to 300,000 migrant children.
A report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general provided Mr. Trump with new fodder. The report, released in mid-August, noted that out of some 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children placed into the custody of the refugee office from the 2019 to the 2023 fiscal years, about 32,000 children had failed to appear for their immigration hearings. Another 291,000 did not receive “notices to appear” in immigration court at all.
Again, these children were not “lost,” though the report chided immigration officials by noting that without an ability to monitor the location of the children, they were more susceptible to “trafficking, exploitation or forced labor.” Moreover, about half of that period — the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years, and part of the 2021 fiscal year — was during the Trump administration.
Aug. 23, 2024
Mr. Trump campaigns in
Glendale, Ariz.
“According to a new D.H.S. report, Kamala Harris also lost, and this is impossible to believe, listen to this, 325,000 migrant children are gone. They’re missing. She allowed them to be trafficked into our country.”
Aug. 30, 2024
Mr. Trump speaks in
Johnstown, Pa.
By now, the claim, updated with the inflated figure, has become a common refrain for Mr. Trump.
Sept. 13, 2024
Mr. Trump addresses a news conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, Calif.
“Under this administration, 325,000 migrant children are missing, 325,000. In other words, take your biggest stadium in California and you could fill it up five or six times. Those are all missing children.”
Sept. 29, 2024
Mr. Trump appears at
a rally in Erie, Pa.
“This is not even possible to believe. 325,000 migrant children are missing, many of whom have been trafficked and raped. As California attorney general, she lost them all.”
Oct. 1, 2024
Senator JD Vance repeats the number at the vice-presidential debate, but adds caveats.
Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump’s vice-presidential pick, advances the talking point on the national stage, though he uses more tempered language in claiming that the children have been “effectively lost.” He does not repeat Mr. Trump’s contention that “many” have died.
Oct. 6, 2024
Mr. Trump, addressing supporters at a rally in Juneau, Wis., reverts to shorthand to refer to the number.
“She doesn’t mention how bad inflation was, how bad the 325,000 children that we just mention.”
Mr. Trump abbreviates the misleading claim into a simple two-word phrase: “325,000 children.” Like other phrases — “laptop from hell” or “$85 billion in equipment” — the shorthand suggests that his audience is now familiar with his distortions after months of repetition.
News
Video: What Trump Told Us About the ICE Shooting
new video loaded: What Trump Told Us About the ICE Shooting
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Alexandra Ostasiewicz, Nikolay Nikolov and Coleman Lowndes
January 8, 2026
News
Community reacts to ICE shooting in Minnesota. And, RFK Jr. unveils new food pyramid
Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.
Today’s top stories
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis woman, yesterday. Multiple observers captured the shooting on video, and community members demanded accountability. Minnesota law enforcement officials and the FBI are investigating the fatal shooting, which the Trump administration says was an act of self-defense. Meanwhile, the mayor has accused the officer of reckless use of power and demanded that ICE get out of Minneapolis.
People demonstrate during a vigil at the site where a woman was shot and killed by an immigration officer earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, 2026. An immigration officer in Minneapolis shot dead a woman on Wednesday, triggering outrage from local leaders even as President Trump claimed the officer acted in self-defense. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey deemed the government’s allegation that the woman was attacking federal agents “bullshit,” and called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducting a second day of mass raids to leave Minneapolis.
Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images
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Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images
- 🎧 Caitlin Callenson recorded the shooting and says officers gave Good multiple conflicting instructions while she was in her vehicle. Callenson says Good was already unresponsive when officers pulled her from the car. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claims the officer was struck by the vehicle and acted in self-defense. In the video NPR reviewed, the officer doesn’t seem to be hit and was seen walking after he fired the shots, NPR’s Meg Anderson tells Up First. Anderson says it has been mostly peaceful in Minneapolis, but there is a lot of anger and tension because protesters want ICE out of the city.
U.S. forces yesterday seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the north Atlantic between Iceland and Britain after a two-week chase. The tanker was originally headed to Venezuela, but it changed course to avoid the U.S. ships. This action comes as the Trump administration begins releasing new information about its plans for Venezuela’s oil industry.
- 🎧 It has been a dramatic week for U.S. operations in Venezuela, NPR’s Greg Myre says, prompting critics to ask if a real plan for the road ahead exists. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded that the U.S. does have a strategy to stabilize Venezuela, and much of it seems to involve oil. Rubio said the U.S. would take control of up to 50 million barrels of oil from the country. Myre says the Trump administration appears to have a multipronged strategy that involves taking over the country’s oil, selling it on the world market and pressuring U.S. oil companies to enter Venezuela.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released new dietary guidelines for Americans yesterday that focus on promoting whole foods, proteins and healthy fats. The guidance, which he says aims to “revolutionize our food culture,” comes with a new food pyramid, which replaces the current MyPlate symbol.
- 🎧 “I’m very disappointed in the new pyramid,” Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert who was on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, tells NPR’s Allison Aubrey. Gardner says the new food structure, which features red meat and saturated fats at the top, contradicts decades of evidence and research. Poor eating habits and the standard American diet are widely considered to cause chronic disease. Aubrey says the new guidelines alone won’t change people’s eating habits, but they will be highly influential. This guidance will shape the offerings in school meals and on military bases, and determine what’s allowed in federal nutrition programs.
Special series
Trump has tried to bury the truth of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. NPR built a visual archive of the attack on the Capitol, showing exactly what happened through the lenses of the people who were there. “Chapter 4: The investigation” shows how federal investigators found the rioters and built the largest criminal case in U.S. history.
Political leaders, including Trump, called for rioters to face justice for their actions on Jan. 6. This request came because so few people were arrested during the attack. The extremists who led the riot remained free, and some threatened further violence. The government launched the largest federal investigation in American history, resulting in the arrest of over 1,500 individuals from all 50 states. The most serious cases were made by prosecutors against leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. For their roles in planning the attack against the U.S., some extremists were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Take a look at the Jan. 6 prosecutions by the numbers, including the highest sentence received.
To learn more, explore NPR’s database of federal criminal cases from Jan. 6. You can also see more of NPR’s reporting on the topic.
Deep dive
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
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Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Trump takes 325 milligrams of daily aspirin, which is four times the recommended 81 milligrams of low-dose aspirin used for cardiovascular disease prevention. The president revealed this detail in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published last week. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that anyone over 60 not start a daily dose of aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease if they don’t already have an underlying problem. The group said it’s reasonable to stop preventive aspirin in people already taking it around age 75 years. Trump is 79. This is what you should know about aspirin and cardiac health:
- 💊 Doctors often prescribe the low dose of aspirin because there’s no benefit to taking a higher dose, according to a large study published in 2021.
- 💊 Some people, including adults who have undergone heart bypass surgery and those who have had a heart attack, should take the advised dose of the drug for their entire life.
- 💊 While safer than other blood thinners, the drug — even at low doses — raises the risk of bleeding in the stomach and brain. But these adverse events are unlikely to cause death.
3 things to know before you go
When an ant pupa has a deadly, incurable infection, it sends out a signal that tells worker ants to unpack it from its cocoon and disinfect it, a process that results in its death.
Christopher D. Pull/ISTA
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Christopher D. Pull/ISTA
- Young, terminally ill ants will send out an altruistic “kill me” signal to worker ants, according to a study in the journal Nature Communications. With this strategy, the sick ants sacrifice themselves for the good of their colony.
- In this week’s Far-Flung Postcards series, you can spot a real, lone California sequoia tree in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. Napoleon III transformed the park from a former landfill into one of the French capital’s greenest escapes.
- The ACLU and several authors have sued Utah over its “sensitive materials” book law, which has now banned 22 books in K-12 schools. Among the books on the ban list are The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. (via KUER)
This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
News
Video: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
new video loaded: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
transcript
transcript
Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota slammed the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration agent. President Trump said that the agents had acted in self-defense.
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This morning, we learned that an ICE officer shot and killed someone in Minneapolis. We have been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety, that someone was going to get hurt. Just yesterday, I said exactly that. What we’re seeing is the consequences of governance designed to generate fear, headlines and conflict. It’s governing by reality TV. And today, that recklessness cost someone their life.
By Jiawei Wang
January 8, 2026
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