Mike Johnson has accused the network of gutting his answers on ‘Face the Nation’
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) compares CBS cut of his interview with ‘Face the Nation’ to raw footage © X/screenshot
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson has accused CBS of selectively editing his interview to change the context of what he said, posting the original footage on social media as proof.
While cutting pre-taped interviews for time is a standard practice, altering the content and context of the quoted statements is considered journalistic malpractice. Johnson claimed that CBS did just that to his appearance on Sunday’s episode of ‘Face the Nation’.
“I recently traveled to [North Carolina] and victims of Hurricane Helene told me nearly two weeks after landfall, the Biden-Harris Administration had STILL not provided them with all the resources they desperately needed,” Johnson wrote on X. “But CBS selectively edited OUT ENTIRELY this first-hand perspective.”
He then posted the segment as aired alongside the raw footage, which showed which parts CBS had chosen to omit.
“So they’ve obligated some funds, but they’ve only distributed two percent…. The rescue and recovery effort is still going on, and then we address the rest of it,” CBS showed him as saying in the first segment.
The network omitted five other sentences in between, including that the people of North Carolina told Johnson they “had not been provided the resources, almost two weeks after the storm, that they desperately needed.”
I recently traveled to NC and victims of Hurricane Helene told me nearly two weeks after landfall, the Biden-Harris Administration had STILL not provided them with all the resources they desperately needed.But CBS selectively edited OUT ENTIRELY this first-hand perspective. pic.twitter.com/ZjO5LWdtsM
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) October 15, 2024
Johnson then shared another example of selective editing, in which CBS removed all references to the federal government trying to prevent a state from removing non-citizens from voter rolls.
“Here’s the problem, there is a number of states that are not requiring proof of citizenship when illegals or non-citizens register to vote. We know that’s happening. Everybody should want the law to be followed,” was what CBS aired Johnson as saying.
Gone was any mention of the Biden administration suing Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin for cleaning up voter rolls to exclude non-citizens, or Johnson wondering why the White House would do something that “creates a lot of doubt and concerns in the minds of the American people.”
Apparently, CBS also doesn't want you to hear about Virginia Gov. Youngkin, who is trying to clean the state's voter rolls so non-American citizens can't vote there.We need more states doing this, but the Biden-Harris Administration is SUING VIRGINIA and trying to STOP it. pic.twitter.com/10JIJSNkPR
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) October 15, 2024
In the third exchange, CBS cut Johnson’s entire answer to the question about voting integrity, leaving only the opening sentence.
The Biden-Harris Admin let millions of illegal aliens in our country.So, the House passed the SAVE Act to ensure only American citizens vote in American elections.CBS edited that out and focused on 2020 instead of immediate threats to election integrity. pic.twitter.com/gXa07XFt8k
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) October 15, 2024
According to Fox News, Johnson was so disgusted by what happened that he has vowed to never give a non-live interview with CBS again.
The network has already faced criticism for their ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, in which te network aired two different answers to the same question in the preview and in the final broadcast.
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Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who will face Harris in the November 5 election, accused CBS of perpetrating “the greatest fraud in broadcast history” with the Harris interview and called for their broadcast license to be pulled.
The network has declined to release the raw footage to clear up the controversy.