White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed that CBS is the second major news outlet to edit a Trump official’s comments deceptively in the last day.
“60 Minutes on CBS is the second example in 24 hours of completely dishonest editing, this time of @SecPompeo,” McEnany said. “CBS cut out the portion of Pompeo’s remarks where he clearly acknowledges that he agrees with the intelligence community assessment.”
The weekly news program ran a feature exploring a theory that the coronavirus may have originated in a Chinese lab in Wuhan.
60 Minutes on CBS is the second example in 24 hours of completely dishonest editing, this time of @SecPompeo.
CBS cut out the portion of Pompeo’s remarks where he clearly acknowledges that he agrees with the intelligence community assessment.
CUT OUT ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/uKgqsHcqfv
— Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) May 11, 2020
During the segment, CBS showed a clip of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announcing he had seen “enormous evidence” showing the coronavirus outbreak originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence ruled that the “virus was not man-made or genetically modified.”
“The best experts believe it was man-made. I have no reason to disbelieve that,” Pompeo said in the clip CBS showed. When he was pressed about the DNI’s findings, he said, “That’s right. I agree with that.”
The narrator claimed Pompeo was “trying to have it both ways.”
A spokeswoman for the State Department said CBS “intentionally misled its viewers with a report Sunday evening that failed to accurately portray the clear intent of Secretary Pompeo’s remarks to Martha Raddatz on ABC News regarding the origin of the virus in Wuhan, China. They failed, too, to air his comments to the press from last Wednesday that provided even more clarity on the issue.”
Also on Sunday, NBC News political director Chuck Todd drew criticism for showing only a short part of the remarks from Attorney General William Barr regarding the case against Micheal Flynn.
“Well, history is written by the winner. So, it largely depends on who’s writing the history,” Barr said.
Barr’s full remarks added: “But I think a fair history would say that it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law. It helped, it upheld the standards of the Department of Justice, and it undid what was an injustice.”
