CNN appears to have accidentally cut to an interview with an Ohio “focus group” too early as CNN anchor Pamela Brown prompts the interviewee to quote Hillary Clinton after last night’s debate.
The video was uploaded to YouTube shortly after the debate and shows Brown with a group of undecided Ohio voters. When the camera cuts to Brown, her mic is already on and she can be heard coaching a woman in the front row.
“…That America already is great, but we are great because we are good,” Brown says, quoting Hillary Clinton.
Moments later, Brown asks the same woman what anti-Trump argument Clinton gave that stuck with her the most. The woman answers with a nearly identical statement to what Brown could be heard coaching her before.
“She stated that America is already great, and I tend to agree with that. Though we are slow in progressing in a number of ways, we are progressing and we need to continue the momentum.”
According to The Daily Caller:
Brown may have been informing focus group members about what clip CNN had just aired (since they couldn’t see the replay themselves), or Brown could have been setting up a semi-staged response after previously finding out what the focus group member wanted to say.
UPDATE @ 1:17 pm EDT: According to a CNN spokesperson, “The focus group was not able to hear or see the post-debate segment. Brown described the segment in real time so they would know what was being discussed. It’s absurd to think she was coaching the focus group in anyway.”
