The CBS News program 60 Minutes heavily edited down an interview with Donald Trump that aired on Sunday night, his first sit-down with the show in five years.
Trump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.
While 60 Minutes traditionally cuts down interviews, these edits are particularly notable because, exactly one year before Trump was interviewed by O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday he had sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, then the vice-president, which he alleged had been deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.
Many legal experts widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, but CBS settled with Trump for $16m in July. As part of the settlement, the network had agreed that it would release transcripts of future interviews of presidential candidates.
At the beginning of Sunday’s show, O’Donnell reminded viewers that Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit, but noted that “the settlement did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing”.
During the interview, in a clip that did not air on the broadcast, Trump needled CBS over the settlement and repeated his claims against the network.
“Actually, 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not,” Trump said. “But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”
During another un-aired portion of the interview, Trump praised the sale of CBS to the Ellison family and said the network’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, was a “great new leader”.
The US president said he didn’t know Weiss, but told O’Donnell: “I hear she’s a great person.
“I think you have a great new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise, is a great – from what I know,” he said.
Trump was particularly effusive in praising David Ellison and his father, Larry, the new owner of CBS News’s parent company, Paramount, through their company Skydance Media.
“I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership,” Trump said. “I think it’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.”
O’Donnell did not directly respond to the president’s comments about Weiss and the Ellisons.
Among Trump’s many answers that were edited out were several comments questioning the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, which he said “was rigged and stolen”.
At one point in the interview, in a segment that was not aired on the broadcast, Trump tried to get O’Donnell to acknowledge that crime was down in Washington DC, where she lives.
“You live here. You know that too,” Trump said, asking O’Donnell: “Do you see a difference?”
“I think I’ve been working too hard,” O’Donnell responded. “I haven’t been out and about that much … I get in my car and go to work and I go home.”
Trump said “that’s not a fair answer” and insisted that O’Donnell noticed a difference.
The president then seemed to suggest that the back-and-forth didn’t need to be aired on the show.
“You don’t have to use that one,” he said. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, I don’t want to embarrass her.”
