What I’m saying is that the statement “and they apologized” is true and very significant. It’s extremely uncommon to get that much. Picturing a job interview scenario. People are all emotion and that fragment does the job. Not picturing IRC with a bunch of invested people here, in which case yes, your point is logically valid there.
In my experience the people doing the interview are not at all emotional during a job interview. They're coldly cautious if anything. So an apology that isn't a full retraction won't matter since the person is still a potential risk in their eyes.
