Defense reporter Thomas Ricks’s appearance on Fox News yesterday, during which Ricks charged that Fox News “hyped” the Benghazi scandal and was “operating as a wing of the Republican party,” has become the subject of a heated back and forth between Ricks and the network.
Ricks is promoting his new book The Generals, and appeared on Fox to discuss Susan Rice’s potential nomination as secretary of state. When he took the interview in a somewhat unexpected direction, anchor Jon Scott obviously cut the segment short. According to Fox News executive vice president Michael Clemente, Ricks “apologized in our offices afterward but doesn’t have the strength of character to do that publicly.” That’s not how Ricks remembers it, though. He says he doesn’t “remember such an apology.” Clemente shot back, “I’ll refresh his memory – what he said following the segment was, ‘Sorry… I’m tired from a non-stop book tour.’ Perhaps now he can finally get some rest.”
The segment that caused the dispute is below: