A Fox network affiliate station claims a broadcasting glitch is to blame after Jemele Hill‘s comments against President Donald Trump were omitted from a Tuesday airing of “The Wendy Williams Show.”
Fox 5 Atlanta, where the telecast was interrupted, promised to re-air the interview in its entirety in the wee hours of Wednesday morning — 3 a.m. to be exact.
In the part of that was cut from the Atlanta broadcast, former ESPN anchor Jemele Hill was recalling the time she likened Donald Trump to a white nationalist. (Jezebel / video screenshot)
The former ESPN sportscaster was in the middle of discussing her previous remarks linking the president to white supremacists when the broadcast suddenly cut to a commercial for “Master Chef Junior,” according to Jezebel, which first reported the faux pas. Hill, 43, whom ESPN reprimanded for her public criticism of Trump before issuing a two-week suspension over her remarks against Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, doubled down her previous claims that the president is a racist.
“I thought it was something that was obvious, especially after Charlottesville. I was very disappointed, like a lot of people, that the president —” she said before the broadcast was disrupted.
For nearly a minute-and-a half, the station ran multiple ads, including one for embattled pizza chain Papa John’s, before finally cutting back to Williams’ talk show. By that time, Hill had moved on from Trump and was discussing an entirely new topic.
In a statement, reps for the station attributed brief “technical difficulties” for the issue and said the omission of Hill’s comments, which made it onto other outlets that air Williams’ nationally syndicated show, was an accident.
“This morning, during a live broadcast of The Wendy Williams Show, FOX 5 experienced technical difficulties which triggered an interruption of the program,” it read. “The issue has been addressed and resolved. The program will be rebroadcast tomorrow morning from 3am-4am.”
In the portion that was axed from the Fox 5 telecast, Hill recalled the September 2017 tweet where she dubbed Trump a “white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” The remark hit a nerve with folks in the Trump White House but drew raucous applause from Williams’ studio audience on Tuesday.
“The track record is laid out,” she said. “So we know what he said about the Central Park 5, and the housing discrimination.”
Hill left ESPN in 2018 and is now a staff writer for The Atlantic magazine.
Watch more in the video below.
