Fox & Friends host refers to Trump as a 'dictator'
'Sometimes on live TV sometimes you don’t always say things perfectly,' Abby Huntsman admits later
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A Fox News host has apologised after referring to Donald Trump as a “dictator” on live TV.
Abby Huntsman made the error while narrating live the US president’s arrival in Singapore ahead of Tuesday’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, during a Fox & Friends broadcast.
Speaking to former White House press secretary Anthony Scaramucci, Ms Huntsman remarked on the “historic” nature of the much-anticipated meeting.
“Regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators, what we are seeing right now, this is history,” she said.
Mr Scaramucci, who lasted just 10 days in his Trump administration job last summer, did no question the presenter on her choice of terms.
Commenting on the leaders’ meeting, he said: “[Trump] is a disruptive risk-taker, he’s willing to break the usual bonds of what would be not going to a meeting like this, because he knows that if he goes to a meeting like this, he increases the chance of peace and global prosperity.”
The billionaire should be given “huge credit for being there”, Mr Scaramucci added.
Ms Huntsman later apologised on-air, saying that “sometimes on live TV sometimes you don’t always say things perfectly”.
“I called both President Trump and Kim Jong-un a dictator. I did not mean that, my mistake, so I apologise for that,” she added.
Fox & Friends is among the president’s favourite TV programmes.
Mr Trump accepted an invitation to meet with Mr Kim apparently on the spur of the moment in March.
Having cancelled the meeting once, the president has now said there is “excitement in the air” in Singapore, and last week told reporters “I don’t think I have to prepare very much”.
It will come shortly after a fraught G7 summit in Canada where Mr Trump clashed with fellow leaders on trade. Following the conference in Québec he launched a personal attack on prime minister Justin Trudeau, calling him “dishonest & weak”.
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