Fox Fact-Checks Mamdani on ICE Shooting as MS NOW Enables Democrats

On Monday morning, Fox & Friends fact checked Mayor Zohran Mamdani for spreading misinformation about the ICE shooting of illegal alien Oscar Bergal in contrast with MS NOW which has boosted claims peddled by Democrats.

The group zeroed in on an interview MS NOW host Jacob Soboroff did with Mayor Mamdani on Sunday's Connect show in which the New York Democrat claimed that the NYPD was unable to hold Bergal for ICE because there was no warrant out on him. He further hinted that DHS claims about Bergal having a criminal history were probably not true. From Sunday, Mamdani asserted:

There is no warrant for Mr. Bergal in New York City, and when I brought that up to the secretary, the secretary went into the same kind of language that you've heard from the secretary since, which is implications of criminality on the basis of evidence that will likely never be released. And we are too old not to know that trusting ICE at their word is a fool's errand. What we see, as you said, is a rinse-and-repeat and attempt to justify the unjustifiable no matter where it occurs across this country.

Fill-in co-host Rachel Campos Duffy listed items from Bergal's criminal record and referred to reports that he has a history of using a machete to threaten neighbors:

Hey, guys, how about trusting the neighbors of this criminal who said he was terrorizing all the neighbors with a machete. I mean, this is insane. Look at this rap sheet. Let's put that back up. We've got his rap sheet here, you guys. ... Prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, multiple arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession. And he also has Trinitarios gang associations.

Co-host Lawrence Jones then called out MS NOW's Soboroff for not challenging any of Mamdani's claims:

Couple of things, fact checks for the mayor. He knows that if someone has a deportation order, there's no criminal warrants, right? It's a civil process. That doesn't mean that the federal government does not have authority to pick the person up. So him -- and that reporter not pushing back and say, "Mr. Mayor, there's no warrant necessary to pick people that are in this country illegally.

During Soboroff's interview, the MS NOW host notably gave cover to Democrats who claim New York is not a sanctuary state by noting that New York City honored 24 detainers in 2025. But he did not mention that, according to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the state of New York has ignored more than 14,000 detainers since President Donald Trump took office. Here's Soboroff:

SOBOROFF: The thing is, the city of New York does still cooperate, if I understand correctly, in limited cases. Is that right? This morning, your office shared with me that there were 24 instances of the New York City department of corrections honoring detainers in 2025 -- 13 of them meaning handing people over to ICE in 2026. So is that accurate?

MAMDANI: That is accurate. It is the law in New York City that for more than 170 serious violent crimes, when a judge signs off on a warrant that there is that handover.

Similarly, when Governor Hochul appeared on Deadline: White House, fill-in host Alicia Menendez allowed her without challenge to claim that New York is not a sanctuary for criminals.

And several MS NOW shows -- including Morning Joe, Deadline: White House, and Connect -- played a clip of Mamdani making the preposterous claim that ICE agents "have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save." None of the anchors challenged the comments even though ICE deports thousands of immigrants who have committed homicides each year.

Host Stephanie Ruhle even went so far as to fact-check Mullin without fact-checking Democrats.

Transcripts follow:

Fox & Friends

October 12, 2026

6:01 a.m. Eastern

BRIAN KILMEADE: What happened here last week is there's a career criminal -- illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic -- and this guy, they tried to pick him up a month ago, and they were unable to. He got away. So ICE agents, with no help from the NYPD because in New York there's a sanctuary that prevents the NYPD, as great as they are, from working with ICE. They zero in on him, they work undercover, Lawrence. No one knows better than you. In law enforcement, sometimes you have to be undercover, especially with a guy that's hard to grab, at which time...

We have not seen the ICE video at which time this suspect, a career criminal, factual, doesn't matter if you believe ICE, factual, tries to get away in his car with a five-year-old in the back. His fault. He tries to get away, this time they weren't going to let him get away, and they shot through the windshield, hitting him in the neck. He's going to be fine.

But from that moment on, the mayor and governor (inaudible) one thing: ICE is the problem. 

LAWRENCE JONES: Here's the mayor.

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D-NEW YORK CITY) (from the October 11 Connect with Jacob Soboroff on MS NOW): There is no warrant for Mr. Bergal in New York City, and when I brought that up to the secretary, the secretary went into the same kind of language that you've heard from the secretary since, which is implications of criminality on the basis of evidence that will likely never be released. And we are too old not to know that trusting ICE at their word is a fool's errand. What we see, as you said, is a rinse-and-repeat and attempt to justify the unjustifiable no matter where it occurs across this country.

RACHEL CAMPOS DUFFY: Hey, guys, how about trusting the neighbors of this criminal who said he was terrorizing all the neighbors with a machete. I mean, this is insane. Look at this rap sheet. Let's put that back up. We've got his rap sheet here, you guys. ... Prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, multiple arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession. And he also has Trinitarios gang associations.

JONES: Based here in New York.

CAMPOS DUFFY: Based here in New York City. Finally, he took off with a kid in the car.

JONES: That he knew was in the back of the car.

CAMPOS DUFFY: Exactly.

JONES: So he's responsible for his own child's life, putting his child in danger. Couple of things, fact checks for the mayor. He knows that if someone has a deportation order, there's no criminal warrants, right? It's a civil process. That doesn't mean that the federal government does not have authority to pick the person up. So him -- and that reporter not pushing back and say, "Mr. Mayor, there's no warrant necessary to pick people that are in this country illegally.

Also let's talk about, Rachel, the fact that there was two other illegal Dominicans days before that attacked an off-duty officer.

KILMEADE: Stabbed him.

JONES: So were there protests outside of the hospital --

KILMEADE: Zero

JONES: -- when he was trying to recover? Of course, the mayor put something on Twitter, but was there a full press conference rallying the troops, saying this is disgusting, these people should not be a part of our community? Zero there.

(...)

MS NOW's Morning Joe

October 9, 2026

6:03 a.m. Eastern

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D-NEW YORK CITY): We know that ICE is rotten to its core. Today's shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known, which is that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Now, the police commissioner also detailed Bergal's criminal record, saying he'd been arrested on a robbery charge in 2023. He later pleaded guilty to grand larceny and was sentenced to probation. Bergal has also been arrested on a drug sale charge in a case that hasn't yet been resolved.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: And, of course, that's what they'll talk about, but think about this, all right.

BRZEZINSKI: A lot of anger in the streets of Manhattan last night.

SCARBOROUGH: Just put yourself in the scene here. You're in a residential neighborhood Thursday afternoon, it's around 4:00, you've gone to pick up your children from school. They just let school out in Marble Hill, sidewalks were filled with parents and school children, and you heard Mayor Mamdani talk about ICE shooting with impunity, sowing chaos and terror. Well, as school is let out in New York, that's the time an ICE agent unleashed a hail of gunfire into a car that had a five-year-old baby sitting in the back seat. The man in the car was hit in the neck. He survived. The boy, only by the grace of God, was not hurt. Now DHS will only talk about the man's prior arrest. Okay, great. Let's. We know about the man's prior arrest.

BRZEZINSKI: They immediately dive into that.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. But what they find -- okay, check -- but they don't talk about how every other law enforcement agency in America would have gone in and gotten that man peacefully out of the car. They don't want to talk about that. No, no, they don't want to talk about why an amped up federal agent sprayed bullets in the direction of a car on a crowded street in a residential area at school pickup time. You know, police departments across America -- we've talked about this nonstop -- everybody knows this to be the case.

We've had commissioners come up time and time again telling us law enforcement agencies like the NYPD have spent years learning a hard lesson that they live by: Don't shoot at moving cars. Don't shoot parked cars because it rarely stops the danger. It just puts more people in danger. It just puts more people in the line of fire. And almost every department limits it, and most ban it outright. ... This is about whether enforcing them (laws) gives anyone a license to keep gambling with the lives of five-year-old children, with Americans, with immigrants in Maine, killing immigrants in Houston, and, now, shooting into a car in New York City.

You know what, they may not know it, but ICE got lucky this time. But luck is not a policy. And luck, Willie, is not what, what, what those children that are let out of school at 4 p.m. in the afternoon and walking home with their parents, that luck is not what they should be able to depend on. This whole idea about immigration -- "We're gonna make the streets safe from gangs!" Really? Really? Why is it that these communities that they were supposedly supposed to protect -- they're actually scared of these ICE agents who act like thugs who aren't trained, who carry around guns, and shoot wildly into parked or moving -- slowly-moving cars? It is beyond outrageous.

WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, I mean, you just laid it out really well, Joe. Imagine you're sitting in a car wherever you are, and people walk up with masks on and construction vests holding long guns. You might drive away. You might try to get away from them -- those people to --

SCARBOROUGH: I would.

GEIST: -- protect yourself and the five-year-old child in your backseat, right? Maybe you would if these people didn't identify themselves.

(...)

MS NOW's Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle

October 9, 2026

9:20 a.m.

STEPHANIE RUHLE: "Hypocrisy, political theater, show and tell" -- Markwayne Mullin knows a lot about that, so let's start by fact checking him. The person who stabbed the police officer that Markwayne Mullin was talking about had nothing to do with the person who was shot by ICE yesterday. He is trying to draw a parallel saying that the mayor does not care about law enforcement. Those two individuals have nothing to do with one another.

Markwayne Mullin also claimed that an officer was stabbed and that Mayor Mamdani said nothing about it. That is factually incorrect. I'm going to read for you the tweet that was sent out by (the) New York City mayor:

"Earlier today, an off-duty NYPD detective was stabbed several times in the Bronx during what preliminary information indicates was an attempted robbery. I visited the detective and his family at Jacobi Hospital with Police Commissioner Tisch. He is thankfully in stable condition and I am hoping -- and I'm hoping for his quick and complete recovery. I'm confident that the NYPD will identify and apprehend the suspects, and that the people responsible will be held to account."

So we're going to go right back to -- I needed to give you that fact check, but I want to go back to the press room because reporters are asking questions now.

(...)

9:33 a.m.

RUHLE: That was DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. I just want to reiterate this again. The person who stabbed the police officer has nothing to do with the person who was shot by ICE officers. Secretary Mullen claimed that the officer that was stabbed -- was stabbed -- and Mamdani made no mention of it -- was completely silent. That is not the case. The mayor sent out a tweet. I'm going to read it to you again. And the mayor also visited this officer in the hospital with Police Commissioner Jessie Tisch. I'm going to read it to you. (reads mayor's tweet again) I'm not giving an opinion on what Markwayne Mullin is saying. What I'm simply trying to do is fact check what he is drawing together, and because I think it's confusing for our audience, it's important to explain that.

(...)

MS NOW's Deadline: White House

October 9, 2026

4:32 p.m. Eastern

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D-NEW YORK CITY): Today's shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known, which is that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save. (editing jump) We will not normalize ICE's viciousness. We will not accept its cruelty. We know, and I have said this directly, whether to the President or to the public, ICE undermines public safety. It makes us less safe.

ALICIA MENENDEZ: New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani at a press conference last night after ICE fired seven shots at 28-year-old Oscar Bergal...

(...)

4:35 p.m.

GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): There are restraints on everybody else except for ICE. What does that tell you? This is an intentional infliction of -- of pain, of chaos, of just trying to terrorize neighborhoods, intimidate. There's no other way to describe it. They're not trained because trained police officers do not shoot into vehicles not knowing a thing about it.

(...)

4:40 p.m.

MENENDEZ: The New York Post claims that he's going to attack you for your handling of immigration. Would you like the opportunity to rebut that?

GOVERNOR HOCHUL: I already told him last night, I directly told the President, and I said, "I know it's a Republican talking point, but it is false to say that we are a sanctuary." We are not a sanctuary for criminals. And I repeat it -- I said, "I'm going to say it again because you're going to hear otherwise, and you're going to say otherwise. This is not a sanctuary for criminals."

(...)

MS NOW's All In with Chris Hayes (Jacob Soboroff is fill-in host)

October 9, 2026

8:16 p.m.

DARIALIZA AVILAR CHEVALIER (NEW YORK DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE): Trump is -- is obviously using this institution as a cudgel for fascism, right? He is somebody who has made it very clear that he has complete disregard for the safety of our communities. There is no reason that anyone with eyes would think that this had anything to do with public safety. And to me, it just highlights that he is somebody who just does not care about our community and the safety of our community.

(...)

MS NOW's Connect with Jacob Soboroff

October 11, 2026

10:01 a.m.

JACOB SOBOROFF: We start today with continued outrage in response to Donald Trump's reign of immigration terror in cities and towns across this country. Yesterday, for the third day in a row, hundreds of protesters again took to the streets of New York City, calling on ICE to leave New York. This, of course, is in response to the shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Bergal by a federal immigration officer in the Marble Hill neighborhood of New York on Thursday. Bergal's five-year-old son was in the car when shots rang out.

(...)

As New Yorkers and the entire country grapple with ICE's brazen and ongoing brutality, the Trump administration points to familiar talking points like justifying the shooting, claiming Bergal refused lawful orders, weaponized his vehicle, and put officers' lives in danger. We have heard it all before. And, like clockwork, DHS has cast blame on Bergal himself. In a press conference on Friday, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin characterized him like this: "a criminal, a thug, a gangbanger. The outrage should be with him for endangering the five-year-old."

It all sounds so familiar. ICE shoots first, DHS scrambles to justify, to blame, to demonize. Later, in an impassioned statement on Thursday night, the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, renewed his calls for the complete removal of ICE from New York City. Listen.

MAYOR MAMDANI: We know that ice is rotten to its core. Today's shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known, which is that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save.

(...)

SOBOROFF: Do you think that ICE agents broke the law, particularly about how or when a police officer can use deadly force in New York state?

MAYOR MAMDANI: I think that what they have shown time and again is that they view the law as a suggestion. There is a reason why the NYPD would not be shooting at a moving vehicle. There is a reason why law enforcement agents are supposed to wear identifiable information and uniforms. What you could see in that video and in the videos that have been released since is people, bystanders outside unsure as to what they were even seeing. Because in that imagery, it feels as if you're almost looking at a mass shooter as opposed to seeing someone who is purportedly representing a federal agency.

(...)

And what struck me is the secretary did not think that ICE agents had done anything wrong. The same language that you were quoting from of the press conference that came the day after, is the same language that's being used in private. And I made clear that here in New York City, it is not acceptable to be firing at a moving vehicle -- to be shooting at an individual for whom there is no warrant to be shooting at a car where there is a five-year-old. It is not acceptable for ICE to be operating in the manner that they do. And so often the language that they use to describe the people that they are trying to detain is language that might be better suited to describe who they are and what they are doing.

(...)

You're talking about agents who are opening fire in broad daylight. Again, we're talking around 4 p.m. on a Thursday. We're talking about people carrying their shopping bags, walking by a bodega, thinking they're on their way home. Then they hear shots ring out, and they don't even know whether this is from someone who is supposed to be a law enforcement agent, or just someone who is terrorizing the city. And, when it comes to ICE, there is no difference between those two things.

(...)

They view so many people across this country innately as being criminals just by virtue of how they look, where they live, what language that they speak. That is not how we run New York City. That is not who we are as New Yorkers.

SOBOROFF: What charges did they ask you to bring against Mr. Bergal?

MAYOR MAMDANI: That's the other thing. When they said they wanted us to take Mr. Bergal into custody, I asked, "On what warrant? We do not have a warrant for Mr. Bergal in New York City." And when I asked that question, he started to go into the same language that he used in the press conference language that we know they have used to describe so many across this country which then, upon any further review, falls apart at the first inspection.

(...)

SOBOROFF: Secretary Mullen was on television this morning. He continues to criticize both you and New York City's sanctuary policies. Let me show you what he said on -- on CNN just this morning when he was asked.

SECRETARY MARKWAYNE MULLIN, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: If people are really concerned about -- about the tactics that are being used, how about the state cooperates with us? These individuals I've talked about have detainers on them. Oscar had a detainer on them.

SOBOROFF: The thing is, the city of New York does still cooperate, if I understand correctly, in limited cases. Is that right? This morning, your office shared with me that there were 24 instances of the New York City department of corrections honoring detainers in 2025 -- 13 of them meaning handing people over to ICE in 2026. So is that accurate?

MAMDANI: That is accurate. It is the law in New York City that for more than 170 serious violent crimes, when a judge signs off on a warrant that there is that handover. But what we hear from the secretary time and again is to imply that all people in this city, if they are of an immigrant background, could be criminals. And that is something that we firmly reject. We follow the law in New York City. And I know that to the secretary the law is merely a suggestion when it comes to the actions of these ICE agents.