Fox News host Dan Bongino is not happy with the network after it edited a clip of a recent interview with former President Donald Trump, a move that sparked swift backlash from Bongino’s own conservative (and fiercely pro-Trump) fan base.
Bongino’s interview with Trump aired August 7. In it, Trump called the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden fraudulent and once again falsely claimed that he had won. The full Trump quote is as follows:
It’s a disgrace what’s happening, and I don’t think the country’s going to stand for it much longer, they are disgusted. You have a fake election, you have an election with voter abuse and voter fraud like nobody’s ever seen before, and based on that, and based on what happened, they are destroying our country, whether it’s at the border, whether it’s on crime, and plenty of instances, including military.
This entire quote was aired live on Fox News but the network edited the clip with a quick cut before posting it to YouTube.
Fox News didn’t immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Liz Harrington, former RNC spokeswoman and avid Trump advocate, drew attention to the edit when she used social media to call out the network for what she deemed was “censorship” of the former president.
“Fox News EDITED and CHANGED what President Trump said, censoring out 45 accurately describing the Fake Election,” Harrington tweeted Sunday. “This is just as bad as Big Tech. They are putting President Trump’s honest statement, and the concerns of tens of millions of Americans, down the Memory Hole.”
After all this, Bongino posted Monday an hour-long episode of his “Dan Bongino Show” podcast called “About the Donald Trump Interview” where he gave his thoughts on the issue.
“I feel betrayed by a lot of people,” the host said. He added the insults from the pro-Trump base have been intense, even though just several days ago Bongino was their favorite man after taking over the late Rush Limbaugh’s hour-long conservative talk radio spot in March.
“I’ve been called everything this weekend. Sellout, traitor. Pay-triot, with a P-A-Y, which is unbelievable,” Bongino said. He added that some listeners “decided to throw me under the bus immediately” after the incident.
“(The interview) was edited,” Bongino continued. “The reason I was given was to comply with YouTube rules. We have no intention of doing that on my show,” he said. “I don’t control the Fox News YouTube account. However, I do work with them, and it’s my show.”
While it’s not exactly clear why Fox might have cut the clip to exclude Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, it’s possible this was done in an abundance of caution given the media giant’s legal troubles lately.
The network is the defendant in two lawsuits from voting machine makers, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, both of which sued Fox for spreading lies about how secure its machines were in the 2020 election. The Dominion lawsuit seeks at least $1.6 billion in damages, while Smartmatic requests $2.7 billion. Fox has filed motions to dismiss both suits.
Regardless, Bongino said he is trying to resolve the issue of the network editing his show and promised his fans “a definitive resolution.”
“It’s not acceptable at all. I want to make that clear,” Bongino said. “This is not acceptable. Meaning I won’t accept it. And I promise you a definitive resolution that I’m working on now. What it is, we’ll have to find out. But I promise you a definitive resolution. If you think I’m just going to forget about it and pretend, oh it’ll blow over — you clearly haven’t listened to my show through the year.”