'There is nothing at all to worry about': Fox News host Shep Smith says the migrant caravan hysteria is actually about the midterm election

Fox News

Shep Smith dismissed hysteria about the migrant caravan making its way north on Fox News Monday.

• Fox News anchor Shep Smith stressed during his show Monday that the migrant caravan travelling through Mexico is nothing to worry about.
• The caravan is around two months away from the southern border of the United States, and may not make it there.
• In a 30-second clip, Smith said the hysteria stirred up over it is because the midterms are approaching.
• His remarks are yet another break between him and the Trump-supporting opinion side of Fox News.

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith broke from his coworkers on the opinion side of the company to stress that the political hysteria about the migrant caravan making its way north through Mexico is nothing to worry about.

"There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you. There is nothing at all to worry about," he said during his show on Monday. 

The Trump administration, late-night opinion hosts on Fox News, and Fox News guests have been giving a daily drumbeat of stark warnings about the caravan, often with unfounded claims. On Monday, for example, a Fox News guest said - without evidence - that people travelling on the caravan may have leprosy.

But Smith said that the caravan is at least two months from reaching the southern border of the United States, if they even decided to go there. He said the conversation about it only exists because of the approaching midterm elections on November 6.

"Tomorrow, the migrants, according to Fox News reporting, are almost two months away, if any of them actually come here," he said. "But tomorrow is one week before the midterm election, which is what all of this is about."

Smith reminded his viewers of the caravan that left Central America in April, only to cause a ripple in the national conversation in May.

"When they did this to us - got us all riled up in April, remember? - the result was 14 arrests," he said. "We're America. We can handle it."

Smith has occasionally broken off from his fellow hosts on the opinion side of Fox News, all of whom are staunch supporters of Trump. In June, he said the administration was "lying" about a meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump Jr. And in November 2017, he picked apart a conspiracy theory Fox News host Sean Hannity pushed about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a Russian energy company.