Fox News host Laura Ingraham was forced to deliver an on-air correction in the middle of her show after a crack about President Joe Biden instead exposed her own ignorance.
Ingraham and regular guest Raymond Arroyo were mocking the president’s speech on artificial intelligence.
“AI is all around us. Much of it is making our lives better,” Biden said. “And AI is helping the National Weather Service predict weather events, helping the Webb Telescope manage half a million miles of galaxies away — billions of light-years away.”
Biden stumbled over the word “telescope,” which Ingraham and Arroyo found hilarious.
“Good lord,” Arroyo said as Ingraham rolled her eyes and sternly shook her head.
“Did he call it the web telescope?” Ingraham said after the two bantered about AI. “Isn’t it Hubble? Is he thinking of web Hubble? I don’t understand.”
“Who knows,” Arroyo said, as the two laughed.
After they played another clip, Ingraham issued a correction.
“All right. There is a Webb Telescope,” she admitted with a laugh, stumbling several times herself over the word “telescope” ― something they had both mocked Biden over only a minute earlier. “I stand corrected by Joe Biden.”
The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope of its kind by far, was launched with great fanfare in December 2021 and became fully operational by summer 2022. Media ― including Fox News, which has called its images “stunning” and “marvelous” ― covered it extensively.
It’s 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope that Ingraham had confused it with, and, as Biden mentioned, scientists are using AI help analyze its images.
Critics mocked Ingraham and Arroyo for botching this one so badly: