The uncut version of a CNN interview between Ron Paul and Gloria Borger surfaced online Sunday, leading many Paul supporters to claim that the footage shows the presidential hopeful didn’t “storm out” of the interview, as some media outlets reported based off the edited version that aired on CNN.
In the interview, Borger pushed the Texas Republican about newsletters from the '80s and '90s that bear his name and contained racist and homophobic content. In the originally aired video, Paul seemed to walk out on Borger after a terse rebuttal.
But the uncut version shows that Paul and Borger were standing up for the entire interview, and that Paul actually responded to questions about the newsletter for almost three minutes before walking off, and that the interview was likely over.
Paul was clearly irritated by the line of questioning, which he says he covered at length with CNN in another interview the day before, but early reports seemed to indicate that Paul fled the interview to avoid the issue.
The full interview lasted more than eight minutes, and covered issues not aired by CNN, such as negative campaign advertisements and the payroll tax cut.
A post on a website for Paul supporters described the interview controversy as a “creative editing hit job.”
Paul has said that he only endorsed the investment portions of the newsletters, and that he didn’t write them, didn’t read them at the time, and disavows them now.
The newsletters were also an issue for Paul in the 2008 campaign, but following his sudden rise in the polls in 2012, they’ve become the center of increased media focus and attacks from his rivals.
Rival Newt Gingrich called the newsletters “really nasty” and said Paul needs to “explain his own situation and how he could have had a decade of newsletters that had his name on it that he was apparently unaware of.”
Speaking with Fox News on Friday, Paul cited his record of fighting to end the drug war, which he says disproportionately targets minorities, and his work to highlight the disproportionate number of African-American men that are imprisoned in the U.S.
Next week, pro-Ron Paul organization Revolution PAC says it will be combating the charges of racism in an Internet advertisement.
