Incident details
- Date of incident
- July 17, 2025
- Location
- Washington, D.C.
- Targets
- Fox News
A screenshot from a Fox & Friends Weekend interview with Donald Trump in 2024. A top Democrat in the House Oversight Committee accused the network in July 2025 of deceptively editing the interview.
The leading Democrat on the House Oversight Committee accused Fox News on July 17, 2025, of deceptively editing a June 2024 interview with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump to make him appear more supportive of releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents than he actually was, according to CNN.
In a letter obtained by CNN, Rep. Robert Garcia accused Fox News of omitting key qualifiers in Trump’s response about releasing Epstein-related records and demanded answers from Fox Corp. Chairman Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott about the edited version aired on “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
The interview has attracted more attention recently as the Trump administration faces pressure to release more information related to the investigation into the politically connected financier and convicted sex offender, who was accused before his death of trafficking underage girls.
“Considering President Trump’s well-documented past social ties with Jeffrey Epstein, Fox News’s selective omission raises serious concerns that the network may have deliberately sought to shield then-candidate Trump from any further association with Epstein,” Garcia wrote in the letter.
The version of the interview that first aired showed Trump, when asked if he’d declassify Epstein files, answering “Yeah, yeah, I would.” In the full, unedited version that aired later, Trump followed with concerns about “phony stuff” and the risk of harming lives and reputations.
Garcia’s letter, which questioned whether political motives influenced the network to present Trump’s stance in a more definitive light, requested internal records and communications with the Trump campaign.
In a statement to CNN, Fox News rejected the allegation. “There was no selective or deceptive editing whatsoever,” a spokesperson said, adding that the aired TV segment “had standard editorial cuts for time and the full answer to the question aired on the following day’s show.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
