Update: Hugh Hewitt resigned from the Washington Post shortly after walking off of its show on Friday, according to the New York Post.
The drama at the Washington Post continued on Friday, with columnist Hugh Hewitt getting up and ditching the paper’s live news show over how it was covering Donald Trump.
Hewitt wasn’t thrilled with how “Washington Post Live” host Jonathan Capehart and associate editor Ruth Marcus, his fellow guest on the show, were talking about the Trump campaign’s push to extend in-person voting in suburban Philadelphia.
“I won’t come back, Jonathan. I’m done,” Hewitt said, before ripping off his earpiece. “This is the most unfair election ad I’ve ever been a part of. You guys are workin’, that’s fine, I’m done.”
A moment earlier, Capehart had said Trump is “laying the groundwork for contesting the election” by suing Bucks County in Pennsylvania for “alleged irregularities.” Capehart, a WaPo opinion columnist, said added to Trump’s “continued assertion that if he loses, it’s because of cheating.”
Marcus agreed with Capehart.
“Uh, yeah, he’s been laying the groundwork for this, not just in the last week, but in the last umpty-ump months,” Marcus said. “No election can be fair in Donald Trump’s mind unless Donald Trump wins it.”
Hewitt, a conservative columnist at the Post who once served in the Ronald Reagan administration, wasn’t down with Marcus and Capehart’s arguments.
“We’re news people, even though we’re the opinion section. It’s gotta be reported,” he said. “Bucks County was reversed by the court and instructed to open up extra days because they violated the law and told people to go home. So that lawsuit was brought by the Republican National Committee and it was successful.”
He added: “We are news people, even though we have opinions, and we have to report the whole story if we bring up part of the story.”
On Wednesday, A Pennsylvania judge sided with the Trump campaign, agreeing to extend the deadline for voters to apply for a mail-in ballot due to concerns they were “being disenfranchised by an unprepared election office,” per Spotlight PA.
Capehart didn’t love Hewitt’s response, saying he didn’t “appreciate being lectured about reporting when Hugh, many times, you come here saying things that aren’t based in fact.”
Right after that comment, Hewitt stood up and walked out, leaving the WP Live camera on his empty chair.
You can watch the back-and-forth in the clip below:
The on-air fight comes after the paper has been dealing with the internal fallout over its decision to not endorse Kamala Harris. The decision, spearheaded by owner Jeff Bezos, marked the first time Washington Post didn’t back a Democrat in the presidential election since 1988. Hundreds of thousands of readers canceled their subscriptions in the aftermath, but there are also signs the Post’s non-endorsement may have spurred a new audience to check the paper out.