Trump Levels Wildly Inaccurate Attack on 60 Minutes — Along With New Threat to Sue NYT for Reporting a Fact

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

President Donald Trump has frequently ranted about a 60 Minutes interview last fall with Vice President Kamala Harris, but his Wednesday morning Truth Social post was noteworthy not just for its strident tone and new inaccuracies, but because of his attempts to claim that The New York Times is also liable for its reporting on the interview.

Trump has been complaining about Harris’s October interview with CBS’s long running Sunday evening program since it aired, filing a lawsuit right before the November election and then amending it to add additional claims and demand a whopping $20 billion in damages, adding Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) as a plaintiff as part of a tenuous effort to support jurisdiction in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, a court favored by forum–shopping litigants like Trump and Elon Musk.

At the heart of Trump’s complaints about the Harris interview are his claims that a question asked by Bill Whitaker and an answer given by the Democratic presidential candidate were edited to change the appearance of her answer. This is not accurate. CBS released the full raw video footage and transcripts, insisting that the show’s broadcast “was not doctored or deceitful.” There were edits of the kind television programs frequently make to condense for time, but Trump’s accusation that they “changed” her answer simply is not true. His repeated rants that the interview somehow changed the results of last November’s election are nonsensical as well — he won that election.

That hasn’t stopped the president from continuing to rant about the interview, furiously accusing 60 Minutes of “deceitful” editing, directing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr to punish the network, and even demanding that the network to be shut down.

In early March, CBS took a defiant tone in two motions to dismiss the lawsuit that challenged both the Texas venue, and the underlying cause of action in the lawsuit, denouncing the lawsuit as “an affront to the First Amendment and is without basis in law or fact.”

Numerous legal scholars have scoffed at Trump’s claims in this case and other lawsuits, as well as at the attacks he has lobbed at media outlets and social media companies, but the blunt truth is that thus far, it’s frequently worked for Trump — a lot of them have caved. Trump and allies like Musk have used intimidation target their critics, not just by using their financial resources to file endless litigation (despite the lack of merit), but also inciting their millions of followers to harass and threaten, and now initiating government investigations and enforcement actions.

Further complicating matters is the pending merger between CBS’s parent company Paramount and Skydance, giving rise to concerns that Paramount would push for a settlement both to cut the financial losses from ongoing legal expenses and to avoid unfriendly Trump appointees at the FCC deciding to derail the merger.

Wednesday morning, Trump posted a long rant on his Truth Social account about the case — and fired a new shot at The New York Times, accusing the paper of “tortious interference” for reporting that legal experts had called his lawsuit against CBS “baseless”:

The case we have against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount is a true WINNER. They cheated and defrauded the American People at levels never seen before in the Political Arena. Kamala Harris, during Early Voting and, immediately before Election Day, was asked a question, and gave an answer, that was so bad and incompetent that it would have cost her many of the Votes that she ended up getting. It was a disastrous answer! 60 Minutes and its corporate parents, in order that this not have a negative impact on her, removed and deleted Kamala’s entire answer, every word of it, and replaced it with a response that she gave later on to an entirely different question. The new answer was not good, but it didn’t show Gross Incompetence like the one that was removed by 60 Minutes. In other words, 60 Minutes perpetrated a Giant FRAUD against the American People, the Federal Elections Commission, and the Federal Communications System. Despite all of the above, and Paramount’s/CBS’/60 Minutes’ admittance to this crime and, with other similar corrupt removals of answers to questions, the Failing New York Times, which is Fake News both in writing and polling, claims that “people” said that the case is baseless. They don’t mean that, they just have a non curable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, possibly to the point where the Times’ interjection makes them liable for tortious interference, including in Elections, which we are intently studying. The bottom line is that what 60 Minutes and its corporate owners have committed is one of the most egregious illegalities in Broadcast History. Nothing like this, the illegal creation of an answer for a Presidential Candidate, has ever been done before, they have to pay a price for it, and the Times should also be on the hook for their likely unlawful behavior. It is vital to hold these Liars and Fraudsters accountable!

Again, a long list of legal experts on both sides of the partisan political aisle have called this case baseless, and CBS and 60 Minutes have not admitted any crime or fraud. Posting something repeatedly or in all caps does not make it true.

60 Minutes did not “delete” Harris’ “entire answer” and replace it with a totally different answer. The transcript makes it clear, and it’s a massive stretch to call it such a “bad and incompetent” answer that it would have cost her many votes. In contrast, Harris’ awkward answer on The View when she said she wouldn’t really do anything different from President Joe Biden was far more damaging, got widespread media coverage, was used in attack ads against her, and was bemoaned even by many of her supporters. It’s incredibly illogical to claim the anodyne response Harris gave to Whitaker’s question about Israel moved the needle for any measurable number of voters.

Trump did not give a date for the Times article that so infuriated him, but it’s likely one from Tuesday in which the Gray Lady covered Paramount’s efforts to push the case to settlement, including agreeing on a mediator.

The second paragraph of the article states: “Legal experts have called the suit baseless and an easy victory for CBS. But Paramount is entering the talks prepared to make a deal.”

Truth is a defense to defamation claims, which the president’s complaint is at its heart, despite his attempts to cloak it in other statutory regulations. There are, in fact, numerous legal experts who have said on the record that Trump’s attacks are baseless, frivolous, and a dangerous attempt to silence journalists’ First Amendment-protected speech. It is neither a crime nor a tort to report what people have said.