A Philadelphia radio station has cut ties with a host who admitted using questions provided by Joe Biden's campaign in an interview after his troubling debate with Donald Trump.
Using the "pre-determined questions ... violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners," said a statement from WURD.
WURD, Pennsylvania's only independently Black-owned talk show radio station, and host Andrea Lawful-Sanders "agreed to part ways" after she revealed in a CNN interview that she had used four of eight questions provided to her by Biden's campaign for her interview with the president last Wednesday.
"WURD Radio remains an independent voice that our audience can trust will hold elected officials accountable ... This is something we take very seriously. Agreeing to a pre-determined set of questions jeopardizes that trust and is not a practice that WURD Radio engages in or endorses as a matter of practice or official policy," the station's statement noted.
The arrangement with the questions followed concerns about Biden's ability to respond articulately to unexpected issues in the wake of his fumbling performance in the presidential debate. He's currently facing pressure to drop out of the presidential race after his behavior sparked concerns about his fitness for office.
The WURD interview was Biden's first following the debate.
Despite having access to the questions for the interview, Biden stumbled in some of his answers. In one instance he accidentally referred to himself as the "first Black woman" vice president.
He told Lawful-Sanders: "By the way, I'm proud to be, as I said, the first vice-president, first Black woman ... to serve with a Black president."
Biden apparently intended to say he serves with the first Black vice president in U.S. history and that he was the first vice president to serve with a Black president.
After Lawful-Sanders' revelation, prominent Wisconsin radio host Earl Ingram of CivicMedia told ABC News that he, too, used questions provided to him by the Biden camp in his interview last week with the president.
Ingram told ABC he didn't see anything necessarily wrong with the practice.
"To think that I was gonna get an opportunity to ask any question to the president of the United States, I think, is a bit more than anybody should expect," he said.
"Certainly the fact that they gave me this opportunity ... meant a lot to me," Ingram added.
Responding to the situation with Lawful-Sanders, Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement reported by CNN and ABC that offering suggested questions is not "uncommon."
But Hitt emphasized: "We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners."
The campaign, however, will "refrain" from providing questions in the future, sources said.
