A live debate Thursday on C-SPAN's Washington Journal turned nasty when a caller identifying himself as a California Republican called President Obama the n-word, the New York Daily News notes.
During the open-phone-call portion of the show, Anthony from San Diego—as he identified himself—told his fellow Republicans not to rest on their midterm-election-victory laurels.
"I would just like to say that the Republicans—and I'm a Republican—please do not overreach," the caller said. "I know they're going to overreach, but I'm telling you, if you advocate for the repeal of Obamacare and you get too extreme, then Hillary Clinton will be elected president in 2016.
"This is about race," the caller noted. "The Republicans hate that n—ger Obama."
C-SPAN host Steve Scully stopped the caller and quickly apologized to viewers. "OK, I'm gonna stop you there," Scully said. "We're not gonna use that kind of language.
"You can certainly make your point, but you cross the line when you use language like that," he added. "And so to our viewers and listeners, I want to apologize."
A representative for C-SPAN told the Daily News "that the network does not use a delay for calls into their programs."
"The live, town-hall format of our call-ins can occasionally give rise to calls that contain factual inaccuracies or distasteful language," C-SPAN wrote on their website.
"Fact-checking for live viewer calls is impractical, something of the nature of the beast. Regarding distasteful language: When a caller makes ad hominem attacks or uses indecent language or obviously racist language, program hosts are certainly permitted to step in. Given that this involves quick judgment during a live television production, it's an imperfect process. The network does not endorse any comments made by our callers, or, for that matter, our guests," the description added.
As the Daily News notes, the C-SPAN website still has video of the original version of the call, including the unedited racial slur against the president.
Read more at the New York Daily News.