CBS News Significantly Trims Donald Trump's 60 Minutes Interview, Removing Claim Regarding Network Paying Him Substantial Funds

This CBS News show 60 Minutes significantly trimmed a conversation featuring Donald Trump broadcast Sunday night, marking the initial one-on-one with the program in five years.

The former president spoke with correspondent Norah O’Donnell over an hour and a half, but only approximately half an hour were broadcast. The full transcript of the interview subsequently published, together with a 73-minute digital cut of the conversation.

The edits stand out since, precisely 12 months prior to the president's interview with O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort, he had sued the network over the editing of a 60 Minutes segment featuring Kamala Harris, claiming it was deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.

While many legal experts largely rejected the lawsuit calling it baseless and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, the broadcaster reached an agreement with the president for millions this past summer. Under the settlement, the network had agreed to publish transcripts from upcoming discussions with candidates.

At the beginning of Sunday’s show, O’Donnell informed the audience that Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit, but noted that “the settlement lacked any admission or expression of regret”.

During the interview, in a clip that did not air, Trump needled the network over the settlement and repeated his claims toward the broadcaster.

“In fact 60 Minutes gave me a lotta money. You need not include this, since I do not wish to embarrass you, and I’m sure that you are not,” Trump stated. “However 60 Minutes had to pay me a large amount since they took her answer from the segment that was so bad, it proved decisive, two nights prior to voting. And they put a new answer into the broadcast. And they paid me a lot of money because of it. You can’t have false reporting. We must have truthful journalism. And I think this is occurring.”

During another segment not broadcast from the discussion, the president commended the sale of CBS to the Ellison family noting the network’s new editor-in-chief, the journalist, is a “great new leader”.

Trump said he didn’t know the editor, yet informed the interviewer: “People say she’s a great person.

“In my view you have a great new leader, frankly, that individual that’s leading your whole enterprise, is a great – from what I know,” he said.

The president was especially effusive in praising David Ellison and his father, Larry, the new owner of the network's parent firm, Paramount Global, through their company Skydance.

“I think one of the best things recently is this show and new ownership, CBS under new management,” the president commented. “I think it’s the greatest thing that has occurred for years to a free and open and reliable media.”

The correspondent did not directly respond to the president’s comments about Weiss and the Ellisons.

Included in the president's responses that were edited out were multiple statements questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, which he said “had been manipulated and stolen”.

At one point in the conversation, in a segment that was not aired, the president tried to get the journalist to acknowledge that safety had improved in the capital, where she lives.

“You reside in DC. You know that too,” the president remarked, asking the correspondent: “Have you noticed a difference?”

“I believe I have been occupied too hard,” O’Donnell responded. “I have not gotten outside that much … I get in my car to the studio and return home.”

The president responded “that’s not a fair answer” maintaining that the journalist had observed a difference.

Trump then seemed to suggest that the back-and-forth need not be included in the program.

“You don’t have to include that part,” he said. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, I don’t want to embarrass her.”