And now you know the rest of the story: Hours after CNN released an early look at former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s not surprising announcement on Tuesday’s Piers Morgan Tonight that he’s running for president, team Pawlenty sent reporters a frustrated statement claiming CNN kept the truth of the interview from its preview.
What Pawlenty actually said, according to the transcript, is that he’s running for president. But he’s not formally announcing it yet.
It’s a subtle difference, to be sure, and one that’s pretty academic. But one that the Pawlenty campaign wanted to make sure reporters understood.
“This afternoon we asked CNN to release the full transcript of the interview they taped with Gov. Pawlenty earlier today, after they only released a partial excerpt,” a Pawlenty spokesperson wrote. “They refused to do so.”
Here’s the video CNN released before Morgan’s interview aired on television:
Here’s the important additional question and answer that came right after that clip team T-Paw said CNN “refused” to post:
Morgan: And governor, unless I was mistaken you just said you were running for president. Can we take that as a formal announcement?
Pawlenty: Well I’ve got an exploratory committee up and running and we’ll have a final or full announcement in the coming weeks here, it won’t be too much longer, but everything is headed in that direction Piers.
Pawlenty is expected to make a formal announcement in the coming weeks, at which point we’ll know — what we already know.
