TVSpy
“Nightline” anchor Terry Moran caused a mini-controversy on Monday when he tweeted a comment that President Obama made during a CNBC interview. Discussing the Kanye West – Taylor Swift VMA controversy, Obama called the rapper-producer a “jackass.”
Moran was following the interview on a fiber line ABC shares with CNBC. Assuming the statement was fair game, Moran posted the following message to Twitter, where he has over 1 million followers. “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a ‘jackass’ for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.” After about an hour, Moran realized that the statement was made off-the-record and deleted the tweet (now available on Politico).
An embarrassed ABC News provided Politico with the following statement:
“In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.”
President Obama is scheduled for five television appearances this Sunday, and will be David Letterman‘s sole guest on Monday night. If we can expect more of this candor during the upcoming Obamathon, bring on the blitz.
TMZ has obtained the full audio of the President’s remarks, and made it available on their website.