Florida attorney general: CNN edited my Anderson Cooper interview
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) says CNN edited her heated interview with host Anderson Cooper about the Orlando attacks.
“When he posted the clip, he cut out the entire first portion that discussed people donating to legitimate funds,” she said Wednesday on “Len Berman and Todd Schnitt in the Morning.”
{mosads}“As of last night, we were still going round and round with them to either pull it or post it in its entirety,” Bondi added. “That’s only a clip of what’s been going viral.”
After Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., at a gay nightclub, Bondi said that anyone who “attacks the LGBT community, our LGBT community, will be gone after with the full extent of the law.”
Cooper on Tuesday fiercely challenged Bondi’s claims, saying that many LGBT community members call her a “hypocrite.”
“I have never really seen you talk about gays and lesbians and transgender people in a positive way until now,” he said at one point during the exchange.
Bondi reportedly said in 2014 that recognizing same-sex marriages in Florida would “impose significant public harm,” a remark Cooper pressed her on.
Bondi on Wednesday said Cooper did not pick the proper forum for voicing his concerns with her record.
“There’s a time and place for everything, but yesterday was neither the time nor the place in front of a hospital where we could have been helping victims,” she said.
“I was extremely disappointed in that. The interview was supposed to be about helping victims’ families, not creating more anger and havoc and hatred.”
Bondi said there were still serious problems with insuring victims received donations after a tragedy.
“We’ve been dealing with price-gouging issues [and] with potential scams with people trying to donate to legitimate charities,” she said.
“We felt like Anderson Cooper had a huge audience to help people yesterday. He had a real opportunity to bring people together yesterday and talk about what’s right and what’s good, instead of a story filled with anger.”
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