Fox News Suspends David Bossie for 'Deeply Offensive' On-Air Insult: Report
Another Fox News personality is in hot water for their on-air comments: Former Trump deputy campaign manager David Bossie has been suspended by the cable news network for two weeks, The Daily Beast reports, following a racially charged insult he hurled on Sunday.
During a taping of Fox & Friends Weekend, Bossie was debating with Democratic strategist Joel Payne, who is black. Payne accused President Trump and his administration of stoking up their voter base with divisive “dog whistles”: “You don’t have to be a golden retriever to hear all the dog whistles coming out of the White House these days, and from my friend David here.” Bossie responded with: “You’re out of your cotton-picking mind.”
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Payne fired back in anger: “I have some relatives who picked cotton, and I’m not going to sit back and let you attack me like that.” Host Ed Henry even reprimanded Bossie on-air, saying after the segment: “I want to make clear that Fox News and this show, myself, we don’t agree with that particular phrase. It was obviously offensive.”
Fox News did not officially comment on the suspension, but the network did condemn Bossie’s choice of words in a statement: “David Bossie’s comments today were deeply offensive and wholly inappropriate. His remarks do not reflect the sentiments of Fox News, and we do not in any way condone them.” Bossie himself apologized via Twitter:
During a heated segment on Fox & Friends today, I should have chosen my words more carefully and never used the offensive phrase that I did. I apologize to Joel Payne, Fox News and its viewers.
— David Bossie (@David_Bossie) June 24, 2018
Fox News faced a fresh round of backlash last week when former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski responded to reports of a 10-year-old immigrant girl with Down syndrome being separated from her mother with a “womp-womp” sound effect, and when host Laura Ingraham compared the detention centers holding immigrant children to “summer camps.”
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