ABC News reporter David Wright calls Trump a 'd**k' and says 'we don't really cover him' in Project Veritas sting
ABC News has suspended veteran correspondent David Wright after his controversial comments were caught on a hidden camera as part of a sting operation conducted by whistleblower group Project Veritas.
Wright is seen in the bombshell exposé criticizing the news coverage of President Donald J. Trump. He is also seen describing himself as a socialist and expressing his frustration with the network's alleged conflict between real journalism and a corporate profit motive.
"Any action that damages our reputation for fairness and impartiality or gives the appearance of compromising it harms ABC News and the individuals involved," ABC said in a statement. "David Wright has been suspended, and to avoid any possible appearance of bias, he will be reassigned away from political coverage when he returns."
Project Veritas, a group of "guerrilla journalists" led by James O'Keefe, is notorious for conducting undercover sting operations aimed at exposing liberal bias in news media.
The investigative group claimed that Wright made the comments while covering the Democratic primary at a hotel bar in Manchester, New Hampshire.
"I feel like the truth suffers, the voters are poorly informed," Wright says in the video. "Our bosses don't see an upside in doing what we're supposed to do, which is to speak truth to power and hold people to account."
He is then asked whether he considers himself a democratic socialist. "Oh yeah," Wright responds. "More than that, I would consider myself a socialist. I think there are too many billionaires, and I think that there's a wealth gap. That's a problem."
The veteran journalist went on to say that the network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, had become a "profit-" or "promotion-center" for their masters.
"You can't watch 'Good Morning America' without there being a Disney Princess or Marvel Avenger appearing," Wright said. "It's all self-promotional. And promotion of the company, and also promotion of individuals within the company, as opposed to the kind of dedication to the story, and a commitment to telling stories that we need to tell that are maybe hard to tell."
"The commercial imperative is incompatible with news," he added.
According to Wright, ABC News and other mainstream outlets only care about three things when it comes to Trump. These include "the outrage of the day, the investigation and the palace intrigue of who's backstabbing whom."
"Beyond that, we don't really cover the guy," he said.
Furthermore, Wright also expressed his frustration with the network's coverage of the 2020 elections. According to him, there was too much focus on the "horse race" and "the candidate of the week."
"I don't think we're terribly interested in the voters," Wright said.
The Peabody award winner is also seen in another portion of the exposé expressing his frustration with Trump's antics, although he doesn't refer to him by name.
"We're not disciplined enough to cut him off. And we second guess ourselves because we're sensitive to the accusation that we're in the tank for the Democrats," he said. "It feels like every time we take the bait on the outrage we enable him."
"Why don't you like him?" a woman is heard asking from behind the camera.
"Because he's a dick," Wright replies.
This is not the first time O'Keefe has successfully stung the network.
In November last year, ABC anchor Amy Robach was caught in a leaked video obtained by Project Veritas talking for several minutes on a hot mic claiming the network had killed a bombshell story on deceased billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein several years ago despite having incriminating evidence against him.
Here's an excerpt from Robach's rant at the time:
I’ve had the story for three years. I’ve had this interview with Virginia Roberts. We would not put it on the air. First of all, I was told who’s Jeffrey Epstein, no one knows who that is, this is a stupid story.
Then the Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were so afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will, that also quashed the story.
And then Alan Dershowitz was also implicated in it because of the planes. She told me everything. She had pictures, she had everything. She was in hiding for 12 years. We convinced her to come out. We convinced her to talk to us. It was unbelievable what we had, Clinton, we had everything.
I tried for three years to get it on to no avail and now it’s all coming out and it’s like these new relevant revelations and I freaking had all of it. I’m so pissed right now, like every day I get more and more pissed because I’m just like, oh my god, what we had was unreal.
Other women backing it up. Brad Edwards the attorney three years ago saying like, ‘there will come a day for we will realize Jeffrey Epstein was the most prolific pedophile this country has ever known.’
I had it all three years ago.