President Donald Trump condemned Kamala Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview as the “biggest broadcasting SCANDAL in history” on Thursday morning. The president’s bold claim comes a day after CBS News published the full, unedited transcript and unredacted video from the camera feeds of former Vice President Harris’ October interview on the news program.
“CBS and ’60 Minutes’ defrauded the public by doing something which has never, to this extent, been seen before. They 100% removed Kamala’s horrible election-changing answers to questions, and replaced them with completely different, and far better, answers, taken from another part of the interview,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post ahead of his National Prayer Breakfast appearance.
Trump has been livid with the interview and how it was edited for months; he sued CBS News for $10 billion in October and called it “election interference.” In particular, he criticized CBS for trimming an answer Harris gave in response to a question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The former vice president’s original answer, which you can read below, circulated on X a day before her full “60 Minutes” interview aired on Oct. 7. You can also read the edited answer CBS used in the show.
Edited: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
Original: “Well Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we’re not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
CBS News, in a statement on Wednesday, said this was standard practice in TV journalism.
“In reporting the news, journalists regularly edit interviews – for time, space or clarity. In making these edits, ’60 Minutes’ is always guided by the truth and what we believe will be most informative to the viewing public – all while working within the constraints of broadcast television,” they said.
“We broadcast a longer portion of the vice president’s answer on ‘Face the Nation’ and broadcast a shorter excerpt from the same answer on ’60 Minutes’ the next day,” the statement continued. “Each excerpt reflects the substance of the vice president’s answer. As the full transcript shows, we edited the interview to ensure that as much of the vice president’s answers to ’60 Minutes’ many questions were included in our original broadcast while fairly representing those answers. ’60 Minutes’ hard-hitting questions of the vice president speak for themselves.”
However, Trump on Thursday morning made it clear that answer does not satisfy him. “This was Election-changing ‘stuff,’ Election Interference and, quite simply, Election Fraud at a level never seen before,” he added. “CBS should lose its license, and the cheaters at ’60 Minutes’ should all be thrown out, and this disreputable ‘NEWS’ show should be immediately terminated.”
He then said it is worth asking if CBS was paid for “committing this FRAUD” after it was revealed on Wednesday that USAID had paid money to Politico and other media outlets.
CBS’ release of the interview followed shortly after Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr made it available as part of an investigation into a “news distortion” complaint by The Center for American Rights.
Carr’s questions about the interview came as the agency is reviewing Paramount’s pending $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, prompting concerns within CBS News that the company might settle with Trump in order help clear the deal through regulatory scrutiny and facilitate the approval process.
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