Subject: Cliven Bundy: Sean Hannity, Fox ‘just right on’ - Jonathan Topaz - POLITICO.com
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http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/cliven-bundy-sean-hannity-fox-news-106021.html?hp=l1

Cliven Bundy: Sean Hannity, Fox ‘just right on’

Though Sean Hannity and others at Fox News have denounced his comments on race, Cliven Bundy doesn’t think he’s lost friends at the network.

In an interview with CNN’s Bill Weir on Thursday night, the Nevada rancher said he thought he and Hannity are “right on” and that he hasn’t been “abandoned” by the network.

The CNN host suggested that Bundy had been abandoned at Fox News, something he said was apparent by the fact that the rancher was appearing on his network and not Fox.

(Also on POLITICO: Sean Hannity: Bundy remarks 'beyond repugnant')

“I don’t think I’ve been abandoned. I think maybe they misunderstood me a little bit,” Bundy said. “But I think Fox and I, I think, Hannity and I are just right on. I have no doubt that he would support me if he understood really what’s in my heart. And I think he does understand me.”

When Weir told Bundy that the Fox News host had in fact called his comments “despicable” and “repugnant,” Bundy responded: “I hope I’m not that way. I’ll tell you what, I’m not.”

In a somewhat unusual interview, Weir suggested it was ironic that Bundy often spoke about those who are dependent on the government when he has been grazing cattle on federal land, and said some might call him a welfare queen. Bundy responded, “I might be a welfare queen.”

(WATCH: Cliven Bundy's controversial remarks on race)

Bundy, though, continued to back his comments on race, saying that he doesn’t understand why people are so upset and that his comments were “from the heart.”

On Friday morning, Bundy appeared on CNN New Day, railing against the federal government but saying that “maybe I sinned.” At the beginning of the segment, he appeared with a dead calf in his arms, decrying the federal government’s intrusion on his land.

The rancher also took off his boot toward the beginning of the interview and held it up to the camera, saying, “I took this boot off so I wouldn’t put my foot in my mouth with the boot on. But let me see if I can say something. You know, maybe I sinned. And maybe I need to ask forgiveness. And maybe I don’t know what I actually said.”

Bundy, in commenting on his statements on race, also invoked Martin Luther King Jr. and “Rosa Park,” a reference to civil rights icon Rosa Parks. “If I say Negro, or black boy, or slave — if those people cannot take those kind of words and not be offensive, then Martin Luther King hasn’t got his job done yet,” Bundy said. “I should be able to say those things and they shouldn’t offend anybody. I didn’t mean to offend them.”