Bill Clinton's ‘frequently’ comment on Hillary’s past faintings edited out of CBS transcript
Editing video is routine in TV news reporting, but former President Bill Clinton’s comment that Hillary Clinton “frequently” fainted over the years was also cut from the written record of his interview with CBS News host Charlie Rose.
First discovered by the Daily Caller, what Bill Clinton told CBS News on Monday wasn’t quite the same message many viewers watched later on Monday and Tuesday when video clips were being recycled on air.
Clinton was being asked about his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and the fall she took on Sunday in New York following a September 11 remembrance event. The campaign had chalked her fainting up to “dehydration,” a claim Bill Clinton repeated to Charlie Rose.
Rose then pushed Clinton, raising the concern that there may be a deeper health issue in play than simple dehydration.
“Well if it is, it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors,” Clinton told Rose.
What Clinton said next has been partially edited out of CBS News transcripts and subsequent interview replays, according to The Hill.
“Frequently – well, not frequently – rarely ... on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing’s happened to her when she got severely dehydrated, and she’s worked like a demon, as you know, as Secretary of State, as a senator and in the year since."
Those first few words, “frequently, well, not frequently,” are the ones missing from both written transcripts and television broadcasts. While the latter could be explained as an interest in keeping good time, the three seconds it takes Clinton to speak those words should not be an issue in maintaining an accurate written record.
The whole interview is set to air Tuesday night on the CBS Evening News, but the official transcript still shows Clinton’s response omitting the “frequently” comment, to say, “Well, if it is then it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors. Rarely, on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing’s happened to her when she got severely dehydrated, and she’s worked like a demon, as you know, as secretary of State, as a senator and in the year since.”
The Hill noted that “oddly,” a more complete version of the clip aired on the CBS This Morning program, including Clinton's use of "frequently."
