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A liberal reporter added fuel to online fire that a conservative news outlet was duped by a former President Trump impersonator, or even artificial intelligence – resulting in an embarrassing editor’s note.
Last week, Trump called into right-wing channel Real America’s Voice for an interview that resulted in online speculation that the outlet had spoken with an impostor. Audio was shaky, and speculation erupted that Trump either had a cold, poor service or something more malicious, such as someone impersonating the 45th president, or modern technology generating the interview with old clips of Trump.
Zachary Petrizzo, a politics reporter for the left-wing Daily Beast, took things a step further and reported that Real America’s Voice owner Robert Sigg told him that the company would investigate whether the call was some sort of prank.
A source close to Trump told Fox News Digital it "was him" and the audio connection was poor, and he kept cutting in and out. Trump himself has also promoted tidbits of the interview on social media, sharing a 19-second audio clip in which he called President Biden "a crooked man."
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Former President Trump has shared a clip of the phone interview that many believed wasn’t actually him. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
That forced the Daily Beast to issue a major editor’s note.
"This story has been updated to remove quotes attributed to the owner of Real America’s Voice, Robert Sigg, saying he is investigating whether the call was a prank and criticizing network staffers. A Daily Beast reporter had a conversation by text with a person who identified themselves as Sigg, on a number public records show was once associated with Sigg—but a spokesperson for Real America’s Voice said that it was not Sigg and is not his current number," the Daily Beast wrote.
A source close to Sigg told Fox News Digital he has never been associated with the number.
The Daily Beast and Petrizzo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Real America’s Voice maintains the interview was legitimate.
"President Trump was interviewed on Real America’s Voice Thursday, providing his customary insights and wisdom for our millions of viewers. Then, early Friday morning, The Daily Beast claimed in a published story that it wasn’t really the 45th President on the air. More importantly, the far-left outlet published a direct quote from Real America’s Voice owner, Robert Sigg, with outlandish claims that the Trump interview was ‘Chat GOP,’ our show hosts are responsible for a ‘major oversight, our ‘news directors will need to go through additional training about journalism practice,’ and we are conducting an ‘internal investigation,’" a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
"These are all scurrilous lies in a fake quote that The Daily Beast never received from our network. Ironically, in a story they wrote about RAV being duped, it was The Daily Beast in fact that may have been ‘punked’ into believing they had a qualified quote from us," the statement continued. "We subsequently demanded an immediate retraction from The Daily Beast, requested that they preserve all records related to their ‘reporting’ on this story, and informed them that our legal counsel will be in contact about our next steps in this matter. All options are on the table."
A liberal reporter added fuel to online fire that a conservative news outlet was duped by a former President Trump impersonator, or even artificial intelligence. ((Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images))
The Daily Beast has since reworked its story.
"Trump has one of the most recognizable voices in the word, but he sounded choppy and stilted," the liberal site reported before noting that even prominent conservatives believed something was fishy about Trump’s phone interview.
Trump bashed Biden throughout the lengthy call, "He’s the most incompetent president in history, and he’s the most corrupt president in history. And it’s incredible, if he gets to the starting gate, he’s physically incapable, and he’s mentally worse than physically, and if he gets to the starting gate, it would be a miracle to me."
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Other outlets that originally cited the liberal Daily Beast made similar gaffes.
Mediaite published a headline, "Right-wing TV hosts duped by fake Trump voice for nearly 17-minute interview," that has since been changed to "Right-wing TV host insists he wasn’t duped by fake Trump for nearly 17-minute interview."
Mediaite also updated its story with an emphasis on the Daily Beast editor’s note.
"We covered a story based on the Daily Beast's reporting that turned out to be inaccurate. Once we learned of the mistaken reporting we updated our story," Mediaite told Fox News Digital.
Insider also issued a correction: "An earlier version of this story included quotes which appear to be part of a hoax. The Daily Beast attributed comments to Real America's Voice founder Robert Sigg casting doubt that the Trump interview was real. It later removed them and said the network denied they were from Sigg."
Trump has not publicly acknowledged that some have claimed it wasn’t really him on the line.
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Technology website Gizmodo addressed the ordeal, suggesting an AI version of Trump would have trouble engaging with a human for such a long phone call.
"Such a long interview would be hard to pull off with most user-end AI voice synthesizers. A person behind a computer would have to use a text-to-speech program for 17 full minutes, all the while answering questions with minimal lag time," Gizmodo’s Kyle Barr wrote.
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