CBS Evening News cut Bill Clinton's slip that Hillary 'frequently' suffers severe dehydration 'purely for time'

Brett T. | 6:53 PM on September 13, 2016

As Twitchy reported Monday, Bill Clinton sat for an interview with Charlie Rose and spoke briefly about the medical episode that forced Hillary Clinton to cut short her visit to a 9/11 memorial service Sunday morning.

The former president wasn’t quite on the same page as his wife’s campaign, citing dehydration and not pneumonia as the reason she felt faint, adding that she “frequently” experienced such episodes. Clinton quickly walked that admission back, saying that such episodes rarely happened. Frequently, rarely … same thing, really.

Here’s the transcript that was making the rounds Monday night.

Bill Clinton with Charlie Rose: "She just got dehydrated yesterday." pic.twitter.com/nq4pygGCCi

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 12, 2016

People watching the CBS Evening News though (there must be a few, still) would never have known about the slip-up, since CBS cut the word “frequently” from the broadcast, although it did appear intact online and on CBS the following morning. Here’s the original segment, along with the missing words, “because frequently — well, not frequently.”

So what happened?

CBS News: Bill Clinton comment about wife "frequently" having health episodes was edited out 'for time': https://t.co/W9hievf2Fx

— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) September 13, 2016

CBS issued a statement explaining that the clip that aired on the evening news “was edited purely for time while on deadline for the live broadcast.” That’s certainly possible, but it would seem that if a broadcast deadline were looming, it would take more time to cut the words from the middle of Clinton’s sentence and splice the remainder into a seamless whole. Why not cut “She’s doing fine” and roll from there?