Dan Bongino, host of “Unfiltered” on Fox News, criticized the network this week after it edited an interview with President Donald Trump to remove comments he made about the 2020 election. Responding to backlash over the move, Bongino denounced Fox News’ edit as “not acceptable.”
Sparking the controversy, Trump said during the interview on Saturday that the 2020 presidential election was a “fake election” fraught with “voter abuse and voter fraud like nobody’s ever seen before.”
One day later, Liz Harrington, who is Trump’s current spokesperson, discovered that his comments regarding the stolen election were removed from the edited version of the interview that Fox News posted to YouTube.
“WOW. So I went to post a clip from President Trump’s great interview from @FoxNews last night, and lo and behold, Fox News EDITED and CHANGED what Trump said,” Harrington stated in a tweet on Sunday.
She blasted the network for “censoring out 45,” when he was “accurately describing the Fake Election.”
As backlash grew against the network, Bongino attempted to quell concerns about his loyalty to Trump by stating on Twitter that he was “not made aware of any edits made” to his interview with President Trump on Fox News’ YouTube account.
Bongino said on Monday the “reason” the network gave him for cutting out Trump’s comments on voter fraud is “to comply with YouTube,” which is notorious for de-platforming or suspending accounts that violate rules on election claims.
“The reason I was given, is that it was edited, the elections part, to comply with YouTube,” Bongino explained. “That’s not acceptable. To me, let me say again, that’s not acceptable to me. That’s absolutely not acceptable.”
“And I promise you a definitive solution resolution, I’m talking to Fox right now about it. Because it’s unfair to me, it’s unfair to you, it’s unfair to the audience,” he continued. “This show is called Unfiltered for a reason.”
Bongino also addressed skeptical comments made about him, saying he felt “betrayed by a lot of people” who have accused him of becoming a “traitor” and a “sellout.”
Fox News has yet to make an official statement on the controversy.