CBS News Edits Out Embarrassing Verbal Slip in Bill Clinton Interview (UPDATED)

When airing an interview with former president and would-be First Husband Bill Clinton, CBS News edited out a verbal slip that would have reflected poorly on his wife Hillary Clinton.

Clinton sat down with Charlie Rose Monday afternoon in an interview that aired later that evening. As the Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross noticed, this is what the CBS News’s website reported Clinton said when asked about his wife’s recent health issues.

Asked if there was any chance her faintness on Sunday could be a sign of some more “serious” illness, Clinton said he did not believe that was the case.

“Well if it is, it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors,” he said, “because frequently—well not frequently, rarely—but on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing happened to her when she got severely dehydrated.”

The bolded section is of course a pretty embarrassing slip-up: Clinton was about to say that Hillary “frequently” faints or collapses, before correcting himself to say it rarely happened.

But when the segment aired Monday night, the bolded section was edited out, cutting to a reverse shot of Rose nodding to cover up the jump:

“Well if it is, it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors. Rarely—but on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing happened to her when she got severely dehydrated.”

It’s not at all uncommon of course for networks to edit down interviews to fit for broadcast or to clean up an interview subject’s response. But it is interesting that they chose to edit out an error that could have very well been newsworthy by itself.

Watch above, via CBS News.

UPDATE (6:09 PM ET): CBS reached out to Mediaite with the following statement:

The clip in question from former President Clinton’s interview with Charlie Rose ran in its entirety on CBS THIS MORNING, CBSNews.com and on CBSN, CBS News’ 24/7 digital streaming news service. One clip that ran on CBS Evening News was edited purely for time while on deadline for the live broadcast.

[Image via screengrab]

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