Despite his on-air apology Friday morning, ABC is under increasing pressure to pull political anchor George Stephanopoulos from the network’s 2016 presidential coverage team.
The call came from conservative media critic Brent Bozell, who tweeted:
“@GStephanopoulos has been deceiving his audience and should recuse himself from covering 2016. If he doesn’t, @ABC should do it for him.”
.@GStephanopoulos has been deceiving his audience and should recuse himself from covering 2016. If he doesn’t, @ABC should do it for him.
— Brent Bozell (@BrentBozell) May 15, 2015
On Good Morning America Friday, the former Clinton aide addressed his $75,000 donation to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Foundation.
“I should have made additional disclosures on air when we covered the foundation and I now believe directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake,” he said. “Even though I made them strictly to support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help children and protect the environment in poor countries, I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.” He added, “I apologize to all of you for failing to do that.”
The apology from Stephanopoulos, who also hosts “This Week,” did little to satisfy Bozell who sent this statement to Secrets:
“George Stephanopoulos’ apology and recusal from moderating the 2016 presidential debate is not enough. Stephanopoulos’ contributions to the Clinton Foundation and his close association with the Clintons make him unfit to play the important role of an impartial, balanced and fair news anchorman on any ABC political based programming involving the 2016 election. He is a Clinton partisan and a liberal commentator and he has been deceiving his audience. ABC is an accomplice to this deception and now has an ethics and integrity problem. The most appropriate way for ABC to resolve this issue is by forbidding Stephanopoulos from anchoring any political coverage of the 2016 cycle or they will face the same integrity and ethics problems now plaguing NBC.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
