How Fox News edited Trump interview to make him sound less extreme: analysis

03 June 2024

Fox News and other right-wing media outlets have been defending former President Donald Trump relentlessly following a Manhattan jury's verdict finding him guilty on 34 criminal counts in District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money/falsified business records case. On Sunday, May 2, the cable news channel aired a post-verdict interview with Trump, and some of his critics are saying that the interview was edited heavily in order to make him appear less extreme.

The New Republic's Hafiz Rashid notes that some "commentators" on X, formerly Twitter, have been noticing "sloppy cuts and disjointed parts of the interview."

For example, journalist Aaron Rupar tweeted a portion of the interview, drawing attention to a "cut" he says was "clearly heavily edited."

MeidasTouch, on X, pointed out that the video had "abrupt cuts while he's still talking," adding, "Very curious what they edited out."

MeidasTouch's Ron Filipkowski tweeted, "Fox and Friends has to tape and edit the hell out of Trump's interview as usual. They can't go live with him anymore because he's a deranged rambling mess, so they have to clean everything up as best they can with edits."

During a phone conversation with his supporters back in February, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis commented that conservatives shouldn't expect any critical reporting on Donald Trump at Fox News — whose "business model," DeSantis said, is to be as pro-Trump as possible.

DeSantis, according to NBC News, told supporters, "I mean, he said at some point he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote. Well, I think he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and the conservative media wouldn't even report on it that it had happened."

Rashid argues that the parts of the Fox News interview that weren't edited out were bad enough.

"The edits don't even address the wild things Trump actually said in the interview," Rashid observes. "He proposed cutting several government agencies, and reiterated his plan for mass deportations if reelected president. He denied ever saying, 'Lock her up,' regarding Hillary Clinton in 2016, claiming that 'the people would all say: Lock her up, lock her up'. And he would try to shut it down — a claim immediately corrected by X's 'community notes' as well as fact checkers from different news outlets."

Rashid adds, "He also said that he would be 'OK' with going to jail, but he was 'not sure the public would stand for it.'"

Read Hafiz Rashid's full article for The New Republic at this link.

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