JUST IN: Trump Feud Propels 60 Minutes Interviews With Both Presidential Candidates to Monster Ratings
The overnight ratings are in and it looks like the big winner in the feud between President Donald Trump and Lesley Stahl is CBS. According to early reports via Nielsen data, 17 million viewers tuned into CBS’s iconic Sunday night news magazine, 60 Minutes, which represents the biggest TV audience for any non-sports related or non-debate telecast since the Oscars aired in February.
The quadrennial tradition of both presidential candidates sit with 60 Minutes, which airs just nine days before the election, was perhaps the most noteworthy in recent memory, as President Trump brought a great deal of attention when he cut short his interview with Stahl, then released a White House version of the entire interview.
But the fact the most interested viewers had likely already seen and dissected the White House version of the interview, it seems not to have cut into viewership as people tuned in to see how 60 Minutes producers presented the contentious interview.
At issue in the contentious interview was Stahl’s opening by asking if the president was ready for “tough questions,” though the tone of her question appeared to be fairly amicable. Trump returned to that at the end of the interview before cutting the interview short, though it didn’t appear that any of Stahl’s questions or follow-ups were in any way unfair.
Other than a one-minute teased video, the interview with former Vice President Joe Biden was seen for the first time, as were portions of an interview with Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Neither of those interviews made much news, apart from Norah O’Donnell’s asking if the California Senator was “socialist,” to which Harris bust out laughing at what she seemed to see as an absurd question.
According to New York Times reporter Michael Grynbuam, the most recent episode of 60 Minutes interview earned the show’s biggest rating since the episode featuring Stormy Daniels aired in 2018. It is also the biggest viewership of any program on TV in all of 2020 since the Oscars (excluding sports and the debates.)
