5 Wildest Moments You Didn’t See During Trump’s 60 Minutes Interview
If you only caught 60 Minutes on live TV this weekend, you may have missed some of the most volatile parts of President Donald Trump’s sit-down with journalist Norah O’Donnell.
CBS posted a longer version online late Sunday, and the extended cut captured the president in his more natural register — a more revealing portrait that cut back across repeated grievances and jibes.
Below are the five most striking moments that were relegated to the web and didn’t make it to air.
1. Trump Dunks on 60 Minutes‘ $16 million Harris interview settlement
The president gloated that “60 Minutes paid me a lotta money.” He insisted Paramount was “forced to pay me a lot of money” accusing CBS of having deceptively edited its Kamala Harris interview nearly 13 months ago. At the time, he said it amounted to “election interference,” but CBS denied wrongdoing.
The moment began with Trump mocking Harris as someone who “could not speak” and was not a “very intelligent person” before abruptly pivoting to boast about the lawsuit gleefully.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [They replaced [former President Joe Biden] with somebody, the press got behind her. Oh, they were so behind her. But eventually she failed because she couldn’t speak. She wasn’t a very intelligent person, in my opinion. But she couldn’t speak properly. She could not speak.
And actually, 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money… But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me — a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news.
2. Trump raves about Bari Weiss
As he spoke about the lawsuit settlement, Trump sidestepped to hail CBS’s new leadership as “great”, saying: “I think you have a great, new leader, frankly.” He predicted a “new era” for the press under Bari Weiss’ new editorial strategy.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not – you have a great — I think you have a great, new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise is a great — from what I know. I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person.
3. Trump threatens to walk out over crypto billionaire pardon question
Pressed on why he pardoned crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, he snapped, insisted he didn’t know who CZ was, and warned he could leave the set, then lectured O’Donnell over her question: “I coulda walked away. I didn’t have to answer to this question.”
NORAH O’DONNELL: OK. Allowing U.S. terrorist groups to, you know, essentially move millions of dollars around. He pled guilty to anti-money laundering laws. That was in 2023. Then in 2025 his crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin. And then you pardoned C.Z. How do you address the appearance of pay for play?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, here’s the thing, I know nothing about it because I’m too busy doing the other –
NORAH O’DONNELL: But he got a pardon-
TRUMP: I can only tell you that-
O’DONNELL: He got a pardon-
TRUMP: Norah, I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I’m glad they are, because it’s probably a great industry, crypto. I think it’s good. You know, they’re running a business, they’re not in government. And they’re good — my one son is a No. 1 bestseller now.
My wife just had a No. 1 bestseller. I’m proud of them for doing that. I’m focused on this. I know nothing about the guy, other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government. When you say the government, you’re talking about the Biden government.
It’s a corrupt government. Biden was the most corrupt president and he was the worst president we’ve ever had. I only care about one thing. Will crypto be — will we be number one in crypto? Crypto has turned out, and in that sense I’ve been right.
Crypto’s turned out to be a massive industry, if you wanna call it that. And I’m very proud to say that we are far and away ahead of China and everybody else. Now, China is getting into it very big, right now. If you wanna go after people, you’re gonna kill that industry.
And it’ll be very bad. Tremendous number of jobs. I campaigned positively on crypto, very openly. I campaigned. Biden campaigned against it. When Biden found out that I was getting, like, 100% of the crypto vote, which was a lot, he switched totally and he went in favor of crypto.
They were totally in favor. They had many people under indictment. They let ’em all go. They let ’em all go. You know that. Many people were under indictment. Biden was a corrupt president. Biden went all in on crypto at the very end because he thought he could get some votes.
It didn’t work. They voted for me. I wanna make crypto great for America. That’s the only thing. I don’t wanna have somebody else have crypto and have China be number one in the world in crypto. Because in crypto it’s a kind of an industry where basically you’re going to have number one and you’re not gonna have a number two. And right now we’re number one by a long shot. I wanna keep it that way. The same way we’re number one with AI, we’re number one with crypto. And I wanna keep it that way.
O’DONNELL: So not concerned about the appearance of corruption with this?
TRUMP: I can’t say, because — I can’t say — I’m not concerned. I don’t — I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it. You just came to me and you said, “Can I ask another question?” And I said, yeah. This is the question.
O’DONNELL: And you answered-
TRUMP: I don’t mind. Did I let you do it? I coulda walked away. I didn’t have to answer this question. I’m proud to answer the question. You know why? We’ve taken crypto-
O’DONNELL: But just generally speak-
TRUMP: Excuse me. We’re No. 1 in crypto in the whole world. Other people wanna be. They’re fighting like hell to be. But we’re No. 1 in crypto because I’m the president. Biden wanted to also, at the very end, you know, he totally switched his thing.
4. Trump re-ups his “rigged” 2020 election claims — again and again
Several times throughout the interview, the president pushed his repeated claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him – using the word six times and insisted that voters in the U.S. “don’t ever want that to happen again.”
Asked about whether he would run again in 2028, Trump pointed to a “strong bench” of MAGA Republican potential candidates before warning that the “rigged” 2020 election was a lesson:
TRUMP: I like so many people. We have an unbelievable bench. We could run two people together. We have a great bench. So I don’t wanna start talking about elections. It’s too early. One thing I can tell you, the 2020 election was rigged.
And a lotta people say when it’s rigged you’re allowed to do it again. It was rigged. And it’s been caught. And they — and you see the same information that everybody else does. And it’s coming out now in spades. But with all of that, we have a great bench.
When O’Donnell quizzed the president on his border policies, his strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels and rising tensions with Venezuela, the president blamed the state of the world on the outcome of the 2024 race:
TRUMP: I go to Japan, I go to South Korea, I go to China – any place I go, and you know what I call that? Respect for our country. They didn’t treat Biden that way. When Biden went there – first of all, he hardly went anywhere. Guy couldn’t leave his bedroom. But they didn’t treat Biden that way. They had no respect for Biden falling up the stairs going to an airplane three times. I mean, this is a man who should’ve never been president. This was a rigged election.
And we have to get back — we have to get to the bottom of that also, because we don’t want that to ever happen again. You see what’s going on. We don’t ever want that to happen again. Look what happened to our country by having Biden as the president.
And when the interviewer tried to pull him onto questions around resolving the Russia-Ukraine war, he repeated the same claim again:
TRUMP: But Norah, that was Joe Biden’s war, not my war. I inherited that stupid war. That should not have been a war. That would’ve never happened if I were president. And by the way, for four years it didn’t happen. There was never even a doubt. Then the election was rigged and stolen, and all of a sudden you see them forming up at the line.
5. Trump swerves from political violence to shutdown politics
Asked about campaign trail assassination attempts on his life as well as the assassinations of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman (D), Trump insisted violence was “primarily on the left” before he veered into a government funding monologue, saying: “I think they have to approve the shutdown so it’s not shut down.”
NORAH O’DONNELL: The issue of political violence I want to get to, because you were nearly assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania. Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s house was firebombed. Minnesota lawmaker murdered. What’s your message to those on the left and the right who would seek to commit acts of violence?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think primarily on the left. A little bit of both, but I think primarily on the left. I think they have to tone it down. I think they have to approve the shutdown so it’s not shut down. I think it’s very bad what they’re doing. They’re hurting people.
You know, if you think about it, if people aren’t gonna get paid, there’re gonna be, you know, a lot of angry people out there. They want to get their food. They want to get the money so they can live. In some cases — whatever they want to get, they want to get.
I think by the Democrats not giving us the votes, I think it’s — I think it endangers both parties. I think it’s very bad. There’s never been a case like this. This is, you know, this is fairly standard stuff. You do auto — extensions are almost automatic.
In fact, they were virtually automatic. This is the only time they don’t want to do the extension, because they’re losing so badly that they said, “Maybe we have some leverage.” One of the Senators said that. “Maybe this is the first time we have some leverage.”
O’DONNELL: I wonder if we’re –
TRUMP: But they really don’t have leverage, because-
O’DONNELL: I wonder if we’re at a breaking point?
TRUMP: The Republicans can’t be extorted in order to ruin our country.
O’DONNELL: Do you feel like we’re at a breaking point? Given everything that you just said?
TRUMP: No. No. It’s been much worse.
O’DONNELL: Because you-
TRUMP: I mean, over history?
O’DONNELL: Well.
TRUMP: It’s been much worse.
O’DONNELL: Sure, but the political violence that, you know, we just outlined. The number of members of people in public that have been targeted-
TRUMP: Well, that’s — that’s a different question.
Watch above via CBS News.
