ABC News adjusted its initial transcript of a much-discussed moment during President Biden’s Friday interview, according to several people familiar with the discussion, as White House officials told the network they believed the president’s words were inaccurately represented.
The moment came toward the end of Mr. Biden’s interview, when George Stephanopoulos asked the president if he would stay in the presidential race and former President Donald J. How would he feel if defeated by Trump?
“As long as I’ve given it my all and I’ve done the best job I know I can, that’s it,” Mr. Biden said Friday, according to an official transcript distributed by ABC. the night
As of Saturday afternoon, the network’s online transcript had changed the quote slightly: “As long as I give it my all and I know I’ve done as well as I can, I’ll feel that’s it.” The network attached an editor’s note explaining that the transcript has been “updated for clarity.”
Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point during the interview were drawn out and somewhat open to interpretation.
ABC’s Standard team decided to review the audio after receiving questions from the White House with several news organizations on Saturday, asking whether Mr. Biden said “at best” or “good,” according to a person briefed on the network’s discussions.
After reviewing it, the network decided to adjust the transcript and add an editors’ note, the person said. The network did not edit the audio and video of the interview itself.
After ABC adjusted the transcript on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the president’s re-election campaign emailed several reporters at The New York Times requesting that the word “good” be replaced in the newspaper’s coverage of the interview, citing the updated transcript.
The Times has revised quotes from Mr. Biden in its articles about the interview to be consistent with the updated ABC transcript.
At a moment of high political stakes for Mr. Biden, and widespread debate about his physical and mental health, nearly every word he speaks in public — especially in an unscripted setting like an ABC interview — is under the microscope.
After Friday’s interview, White House stenographers, who are not political appointees and routinely record all of the president’s public comments, noticed a discrepancy between their recordings and the ABC transcript, according to a person familiar with the situation.
That led a White House official to raise the issue of the quote’s accuracy with ABC representatives Saturday morning, the person said.
The 22-minute interview, which aired Friday at 8 p.m., was watched by 8.5 million viewers, according to preliminary data from Nielsen. It was ABC’s most-watched prime-time news program, excluding election nights and debates, since Mr. Stephanopoulos interviewed former FBI Director James Comey in April 2018.
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