Fox News Guest Anna Paulina Compares Hillary Clinton To ‘Herpes,’ Network Apologizes

Fox News issued an apology to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday, after a guest on the network’s show compared President Donald Trump’s ex-opponent to “herpes” on national television.

The guest in question was Anna Paulina, right-wing organization Turning Point USA’s director of Spanish engagement, who was brought on a news segment to discuss Clinton’s emails, along with another guest, political analyst Doug Schoen. Instead, she chose to liken the former presidential candidate to a sexually transmitted disease.

“I’d have to say, with everything that happened with President Trump and the border, you know the Dick Act of 1903 established the ability of the president to federalize the National Guard and basically call forth the National Guard in times of crisis…” Paulina said, before she was interrupted by host Rick Leventhal, who reminded her she was there to talk about Clinton’s emails.

After Leventhal asked Schoen for his opinion on the matter, the former remarked how Clinton had managed to stay in headlines even though there were a lot of eye-grabbing news happening across nation.

That is when Paulina cut in, saying, “She won't go away, she's like herpes.” Leventhal seemed momentarily stunned at Paulina’s statement, and quickly tried damage-controlling the awkward interview. “Okay, that's news that were breaking here, not appropriate,” he said.

Paulina mysteriously disappeared following her insulting statement and the segment continued with only Schoen as the sole guest judge.

Eventually, Leventhal issued an apology for Paulina’s behavior, explaining why she had been taken off air. “We are going to wrap this segment a little bit early because of the language that was used in the segment, and we apologize to our viewers for that,” the Fox News host said.

Later, Fox News anchor Arthel Neville also read out a statement from the network, apologizing for Paulina’s distasteful comparison.

"We want to reiterate that we do not condone the language that Anna Paulina just displayed here, and we apologize to Secretary Clinton for that," Neville said. “Fox News does not condone her sentiment."

This is not the first time the network has had to apologize for its guests’ behaviors. Last month, the network faced considerable backlash after Chris Farrell, a board member of the right-wing organization Judicial Watch, appeared on one of its segments, hosted by Lou Dobbs and claimed that the State Department was "[billionaire and liberal philanthropist George] Soros-occupied" territory, while talking about the migrant caravan which was moving toward the United States’ border.

Critics pointed out the language echoed a popular anti-Semitic trope. Fox News was further criticized when the network re-broadcasted the episode hours after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, when a gunman killed 11 people in one of the deadliest anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. history, CNN reported.

Gary Schreier, the network's senior vice president for programming, released the following apology on the matter: "We condemn the rhetoric by the guest on Lou Dobbs Tonight. This episode was a repeat which has now been pulled from all future airings."