CBS’s Face the Nation will only broadcast live or live-to-tape interviews going forward, the network announced Friday, after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused the show of deceptively editing her recent interview.
On Sunday, Noem accused CBS News of editing her interview to “whitewash the truth” about alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
During an interview with Face the Nation, host Ed O’Keefe asked Noem why the Trump administration was working to deport Abrego Garcia instead of forcing him to face charges in the U.S.
In the clip that aired on television, Noem replied: “Prosecution decisions are always made by the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi’s department, so we will let them do that, although this individual does have criminal charges pending. He has charges pending against him civilly as well. And the one thing that we will continue to do is to make sure that he doesn’t walk free in the United States of America.”
However, in a portion that was cut from the TV segment, but made available on YouTube, Noem added, “This individual was a known human smuggler, an MS-13 gang member, and an individual who is a wife beater, and someone who is so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors and even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off. He was so sick in what he was doing and how he was treating small children. So, he needs to never be in the United States of America, and our administration is making sure we’re doing all that we can.”
DHS accused the network of “selectively edit[ing]” answers from Noem, cutting nearly four minutes of her 16 minute and 40 second interview.
“This morning, I joined CBS to report the facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” Noem said in a statement. “Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.”
DHS took issue with several other responses being edited out of the broadcast, including Noem’s response to a question about the successful arrest of 5,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles.
“Many of these individuals were people who have, you know, conducted horrific um horrific activities against American citizens, trafficking of children and pedophiles. And so that’s uh one of the things that the people of a LA can be grateful for is that they don’t have those bad actors, those people on their streets anymore because of the work of President Trump and his administration,” she said in a response that was cut from the televised interview.
The network previously stood by its reporting in response to the criticism from DHS.
“Secretary Noem’s ‘Face The Nation’ interview was edited for time and met all CBS News standards,” a company spokesperson said earlier this week. “The entire interview is publicly available on YouTube, and the full transcript was posted early Sunday morning at http://CBSNews.com.”
But on Friday, CBS said it would be changing its policy around editing after receiving backlash over the interview.
“In response to audience feedback over the past week, we have implemented a new policy for greater transparency in our interviews,” the network said in a statement to Semafor’s Max Tani. “FACE THE NATION will now only broadcast live or live-to-tape interviews (subject to national security or legal restrictions). This extra measure means the television audience will see the full, unedited interview on CBS and we will continue our practice of posting full transcripts and the unedited video online.”
The new change also comes after CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, settled a lawsuit from President Donald Trump over deceptive editing by 60 Minutes earlier this year for $16 million.
Trump took issue with the news program’s airing of a 2024 interview of then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris which he alleged had been deceptively edited to make Harris appear more eloquent in the interview than she actually was. The lawsuit argued the network’s editing choices amounted to “news distortion” and election interference.
CBS agreed to update its editorial policy as part of the settlement. Under the agreement, CBS is now required to “promptly release full, unedited transcripts of future presidential candidates’ interviews.”