Donald Trump’s 60 Minutes Lawsuit Tick, Tick, Ticks On

ABLUpdated 2 weeks Ago1 Mins read3

Knowing how petty Donald Trump is, please keep in mind that the following story may be entirely the result of a 2002 disagreement over beauty pageants. President Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News is ready to begin mediation, per the New York Times. Trump and CBS News mutually agreed upon a mediator, as required by the court. Now they will attempt to reach a conclusion, or (to use Trump’s favorite word) a deal, which will include some form of settlement. In the background, CBS parent company Paramount is attempting to close its own deal to merge with Larry Ellison’s Skydance Media. Currently it awaits approval from the FCC, where it could be blocked by chairman and Trump appointee Brendan Carr.

Trump first sued CBS News in 2024, days before the presidential election, over the editing of promotional footage for the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, per a Times report. On both the preview of the episode, which aired on Face the Nation, and on the actual 60 Minutes episode, CBS’s Bill Whitaker asked Harris a question about the Middle East, and, on the preview, she was shown giving a shortened answer. Trump is accusing CBS of editing the footage so it looked to people who watched only the Face the Nation segment like Harris gave a better answer than she did. CBS News says that editing is protected under the First Amendment. “The interview was not doctored,” 60 Minutes said in a statement on October 31. “60 Minutes did not hide any part of Vice President Kamala Harris’s answer to the question at issue. 60 Minutes fairly presented the interview to inform the viewing audience, and not to mislead it. The lawsuit Trump has brought today against CBS is completely without merit and we will vigorously defend against it.”