NBC News Correspondent Ken Dilanian Curses on Live TV in Apparent Technical Glitch

NBC News correspondent Ken Dilanian was caught cursing on live TV Tuesday morning, in a now-viral moment. In the clip, MSNBC anchor Craig Melvin was throwing to Dilanian for a segment about the Trump administration’s refusal to concede the 2020 presidential election, but Dilanian was not prepared. Presumably thinking that his connection was not working yet, he whispered: “Oh s—. F—.”

“Ken, what have you learned, sir?” Melvin asked as Dilanian appeared in a split-screen. He did not stay long, as producers apparently caught the profanity and cut him off. Melvin said: “Okay, I think we lost Ken for a second, we’ll try to get him back here.” Dilanian did return to the program later, and he said: “I want to sincerely apologize to viewers who may have heard me use profanity at the top of the last hit.” However, the response online so far has been mostly amused.

“Ken Dilanian expressing the mood of the nation just now,” one person tweeted. Another added: “Pretty much the sentiment of every intelligent person in the world looking at the dumpster fire in train wreck of the Trump administration.”

Since Dilanian seemed to be looking down when he cursed, as if at a cell phone, some users wondered what he had seen. Some joked that, since Dilanian covers national security and intelligence, his dismay should be cause for greater alarm.

Dilanian later posted another apology directly on Twitter, writing: “So sorry for the profanity I used on air last hour. I was experiencing some technical difficulties and mistakenly hung up on the control room, though my mic still was on. Perils of playing producer, cameraman and tech support all at the same time from home.”

Dilanian was reporting on the responses that intelligence experts and national security specialists are having the Trump administration’s current denial of the 2020 presidential election results. Trump continues to insist that there was widespread fraud or tampering in the election, though so far, there is no real evidence of this whatsoever. His legal challenges and calls for a recount are permissible, though some critics fear he is shaking public faith in America’s electoral system itself.

These fears seem to be supported by a new poll published by Politico on Monday, which showed that about 72 percent of Republican voters believe that there was tampering in the 2020 election — up from the 35 percent who believed it in 2016. Since there has been no substantial evidence of such tampering, analysts conclude that these fears can only be coming from the president’s rhetoric.