A political analyst and commentator from a Georgia news station was fired on Monday after claiming former President Donald Trump had a “looming orange face” on television.
Bill Crane, appearing on WSB-TV on Sunday, was discussing the investigation from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia when he made his comment on Trump, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Labor Day is when undecided voters and nonaligned voters really start focusing on the election ahead,” Crane said during his television appearance. “And keeping Donald Trump and his fantasy of elections being stolen in November of 2020 in play keeps Donald Trump and his looming orange face in front of voters at a time when they’re trying to decide how they’re going to vote.”
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Ray Carter, the vice president and general manager of WSB-TV, released a statement Monday saying that Crane’s statements on Trump “are not aligned with our commitment to fair and unbiased reporting and analysis” and that the station was cutting its ties with Crane “effective immediately.”
Crane stated on social media that his comment on Trump was meant to state that the Democrats’ strategy in the 2022 midterm elections was to keep Trump’s “fantasy of a stolen election” in the spotlight in order to increase Democratic voter turnout. While he has referred to Trump as “the Orange Man” prior to Sunday, he said that his “Orange Face comment” came off as “extremely offensive” to some of the people who watch the channel.
While Crane apologized for his comment, he did not apologize for his analysis, stating that “perhaps in my verbiage I certainly could have been a bit more PC.” Crane also said that in his time as a commentator, he has wanted to “call the hard balls and strikes on either side, and attempt to do so with a bit of humor, sarcasm, the occasional pun and tongue in cheek.”
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“I have worked in senior staff positions on both sides of the aisle and consider many of those folks, Democrats and Republicans, as friends and mentors,” Crane wrote. “The ego is bruised, and I am a bit down … but not out.”
Crane had worked with WSB-TV since 2006 and, before then, provided political analysis for 11Alive from 2000 to 2006.
