FCC chairman Brendan Carr said he expects CBS News to turn over its full, unedited transcript and camera feeds for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ by the end of the day Monday.
The move comes after the Center for American Rights, a conservative group that self-describes as “nonprofit, public interest law firm,” has accused New York’s WCBS-TV of “news distortion” over the “60 Minutes” interview. The complaint specifically took aim at Harris’ response regarding a question on Gaza, which was different in the final cut that aired on Oct. 7 compared to an earlier promo on “Face the Nation.”
“The policy says you can’t swap answers out to make it look like somebody said something entirely different. The classic case is if someone says yes to an answer and you splice in a no answer,” Carr told Fox News’ America’s Newsroom in an interview on Monday. “It’s usually very difficult to make out news distortion complaints, you don’t want the FCC leaning into heavily on this. But here, CBS played the same question on two different programs and clearly the words of the answers were very different. What we’ve done is we’re seeking out the transcript. It’s due today and I expect CBS to provide it by the end of the day to see what, in fact, was said as part of our own news distortion investigation.”
In his first week as FCC chair, Carr revived the complaint after it was dismissed in an eleventh-hour order by his predecessor Jessica Rosenworcel, who argued that it was “seeking to weaponize” the agency and “at odds” with the First Amendment. She warned at the time that the FCC should not be “the President’s speech police” or “journalism’s censor-in-chief.”
In its reversal, the agency said Rosenworcel’s order was “issued prematurely based on an insufficient investigatory record for the station-specific conduct at issue” and that the complaint requires “further consideration.”
“I’m not sure how you can possibly do that without seeing the actual video to see what was the real answer. Was it edited for clarity and length, which would be fine, or there other reasons why the editing took place?,” Carr added. “We’re going to take a look at that and we’re open-minded as to potential consequences.”
Carr did not rule out releasing the transcript to the public, noting that transparency is “incredibly important.”
“I do think the American public ultimately deserve to see this for themselves,” he continued. “What’s interesting is CBS releases other transcripts. For instance, the ‘Face the Nation’ interview recently with Vice President Vance. They released the full unedited transcript there, but for some reason they have not done that here, and we’ll soon see why.”
Carr has previously said that the Center for American Rights’ complaint is “likely to arise” in his review of the Skydance deal, which is on track to close in the first half of 2025. The deal is subject to FCC review due to the transfer of broadcast licenses of Paramount’s 28 owned-and-operated local TV stations.
President Donald Trump has also sued CBS for $10 billion over the Harris interview and has reportedly entered talks with Paramount about a potential settlement.
On Friday, attorneys for Trump filed a request to postpone a deadline to respond to CBS’ motion to dismiss until Feb. 7, which was approved by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division. The two parties must meet and confer on or before Feb. 11 and file a joint proposed scheduling order on or before Feb. 18, according to the court. Defendants must file pleadings, motions or a reply briefing on or before March 7.
In addition to Paramount, Disney paid $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit Donald Trump brought against ABC News and star anchor George Stephanopoulos. Meta also paid $25 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit about being kicked off Facebook and Instagram after the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol.
In addition to the CBS complaint, Carr also addressed the FCC’s announcement that it will investigate possible violations by NPR and PBS.
In a letter obtained by the New York Times, Carr suggested that NPR and PBS may be in violation of government rules by acknowledging major donors on-air. Carr asserted that these “announcements” — such, as say, the fact that Viking River Cruises underwrites portions of “Downton Abbey” on PBS — “[may] cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements” and thus “would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars.”
“Every broadcaster has a public interest obligation, and for years, I think the FCC has been completely absent on enforcing the public interest obligation. And one of the things that I’ve said from the get-go is I’m going to hold broadcasters accountable to operating in the public interest,” Carr said Monday. “With these two in particular, they get taxpayer funding, and they’re not allowed to run commercials because of that. They’re non-commercial entities under their FCC license and there’s some potential evidence that they’ve been running commercials. So we’re gonna take a look at that, and then where the investigation goes from there, will just be led by the facts, it could expand beyond just that narrow issue.”
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