President Trump called for CBS News to lose its broadcasting license after the unedited transcript from Vice President Kamala Harris’s “60 Minutes” interview revealed that the show edited down her long-winded responses.
Mr. Trump said the network committed “election interference” and “election fraud.”
The unedited transcript was released Wednesday by CBS News and the Federal Communication Commission.
“CBS and 60 Minutes defrauded the public by doing something which has never, to this extent, been seen before,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “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.”
“This was Election changing ‘stuff,’ Election Interference and, quite simply, Election Fraud at a level never seen before. 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 wrote.
Mr. Trump said the Harris interview will “go down as the biggest broadcasting SCANDAL in history.”
The uncut transcript shows that a few of her answers were cut down to half of what she said in the October 2024 interview. It also revealed what she actually said in response to a question about the Israel-Hamas war that sparked the then-Trump campaign to say the interview had been edited to make her look better.
In preview clips of the interview on “60 Minutes” and “Face the Nation,” she was shown giving two different answers.
“But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening,” CBS News’s Bill Whitaker asked Ms. Harris. “The Wall Street Journal said that he — that your administration has repeatedly been blindsided by Netanyahu, and in fact, he has rebuffed just about all of your administration’s entreaties.”
Her complete answer combined what she said in the two different clips.
“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 doing that. 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,” Ms. Harris said.
In other questions about Israel, her responses that were broadcasted were cut down, when the original transcript shows she gave long-winded answers that the Trump team labeled as “word salad.”
FCC chair Brendan Carr said in an X post Wednesday that the commission “has concluded that establishing a docket and seeking comment on the issues raised in the complaint would serve the public interest.”
When CBS News posted the transcript on its website, the network defended the interview saying that the uncut transcript shows that the interview was “not doctored or deceitful.”
“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,” the network said.
It also defended the different versions of Ms. Harris’ answer to Mr. Whitaker’s question regarding Mr. Netanyahu listening to the Biden administration.
“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. Each excerpt reflects the substance of the vice president’s answer,” the network said. “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.”
Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit against the network ahead of the November election over Ms. Harris’ interview, alleging that the outlet engaged in “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference” in an attempt to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party.”
Bill Owens, head of “60 Minutes,” told his staff Monday that he would not be apologizing as part of any possible settlements in the Trump lawsuit, The New York Times reported. There have been talks that CBS’s parent company, Paramount, might settle.
At the time, Mr. Trump also refused to sit for a “60 Minutes” interview.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.