Former president Donald Trump dramatically escalated his attacks on CBS Thursday, suggesting the entire network’s broadcast license should be revoked after its program 60 Minutes interviewed his opponent in this year’s presidential election.
Trump expressed outrage that the program aired a shortened, edited version of an exchange about Israel between Vice President Kamala Harris and 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker during its main broadcast on Monday.
That was opposed to a longer version of the exchange—which included a meandering and disjointed answer from Harris about the Middle East conflict that the Trump campaign mocked as “word salad”—that was aired as a preview a day earlier on CBS’ Face the Nation.
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In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump called 60 Minutes’ decision to air the edited version of the exchange—which, at about one minute and ten seconds, was half as long as the two-minute and 24-second long version aired on Face the Nation— “an UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL” and “a FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal.”
The longer exchange was later posted by 60 Minutes on its YouTube page.
Trump’s post included a video showing different edits that CBS made to the longer preview version of the exchange shown on Face the Nation and the shorter version broadcast on 60 Minutes.
In both versions, CBS showed Whitaker asking Harris the same question about U.S. influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the longer version, first broadcast on Face the Nation, the network showed Harris give a confusing extemporaneous reply: “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.”
However, in the edit of the interview that was broadcast on 60 Minutes, the network showed a different response, which Harris gave earlier during the exchange about Netanyahu, immediately after Whitaker’s question: “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.”
It is not uncommon for networks to edit interviews for length or clarity, especially to fit into television broadcast time slots, but the removal of Harris’ answer—which drew backlash among conservatives on social media—raised eyebrows.
“TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE,” Trump crowed. He then baselessly alleged, in a second Truth Social post, that CBS had committed “fraud” and worked hand-in-glove with the Democratic Party: “The fraud committed by 60 Minutes and CBS, together with the Democrat Party, is the single Biggest Scandal in Broadcast History!”
Harris’ campaign, meanwhile, distanced itself from CBS editing decisions. “We do not control CBS’s production decisions and refer questions to CBS,” the campaign said, in a statement to Variety.
CBS and 60 Minutes did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
Trump’s falling out with 60 Minutes represents a major reversal in his life. Last month, he agreed to sit down for a similar interview as the one Harris conducted and then pulled out after his campaign reportedly fretted he would be fact-checked.
At one time, Trump was a huge fan of the show. An anonymous friend of Trump told Axios in 2017 that show was among one of his his many media obsessions, and that he usually recorded it on his DVR.
“He’s so old-school that he thinks it’s awesome to go on 60 Minutes,” they said.
