A Milwaukee radio station admitted Thursday that it edited a taped interview with President Biden — at his campaign’s request — to remove references touting the number of “blacks” in his administration and incoherent commentary on the Central Park Five.
Civic Media, the radio network that broadcasted the 81-year-old president’s July 3 interview on “The Earl Ingram Show,” said the decision by the program to scrub the remarks prior to airing the interview on July 4, fell short of “journalistic interview standards.”
The first edit came about five minutes into the 18-minute-long interview, in which Biden claimed, “… and in addition to that, I have more blacks in my administration than any other president, all other presidents combined, and in major positions, cabinet positions.”
The second cut out, about 14 minutes in, was in reference to former President Donald Trump’s 1989 call for the death penalty for five since-exonerated New York teenagers convicted of raping and assaulting a Central Park jogger.
“I don’t know if they even call for their hanging or not, but he — but they said […] convicted of murder,” Biden said.
In a statement, Civic Media said it launched an investigation upon learning on July 8 that the Biden campaign had called and asked Ingraham’s production team to make the two edits.
The organization said Ingraham’s team “viewed the edits as non-substantive” and compiled.
Civic Media released the entire unedited interview of Biden’s phone conversation with Ingraham on Thursday, citing, “the interest of transparency” and “the gravity of the current political moment,” and said it “unequivocally stands by” the host and his team.
“The decision to make the requested edits to the interview was made in good faith,” the network said in a statement. “While we disagree with the decision, we stand by our team. This has been a learning experience and we will do better moving forward.”
Ingram revealed last weekend that he was fed questions from the Biden campaign to ask the president ahead of the interview and chose to use them.
“Yes, I was given some questions for Biden,” Ingram told ABC News, noting that he asked four of the five questions provided by the campaign.
A Philadelphia radio station cut ties with former host Andrea Lawful-Sanders on Sunday after she also admitted to asking Biden questions that were supplied to her by his team.
Lawful-Sanders told CNN on Saturday that she used four of eight questions fed to her by the Biden campaign.
Biden’s interviews with Ingraham and Lawful-Sanders – both prominent black radio talk show hosts – came after his disastrous June 27 debate with Trump, which ignited Democratic calls for the president to end his re-election bid over concerns about his mental acuity and ability to defeat the 78-year-old former president in November.
The Post has reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.