Donald Trump raged against the media and accused Democrats of ‘paying off’ outlets for more flattering coverage.
The president demanded that long running CBS program 60 Minutes be ‘terminated’ after it was revealed the network favorably edited its interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris just one month before the 2024 election.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released the full, unedited version of the interview on Wednesday. It immediately sent Republicans into a tizzy and led Trump to reup his calls for the network to lose its license altogether.
‘CBS and 60 Minutes defrauded the public by doing something which has never, to this extent, been seen before,’ Trump claimed in a post to Truth Social on Thursday morning.
‘They 100% removed Kamala’s horrible election changing answers to questions, and replaced them with completely different, and far better, answers, taken from another part of the interview,’ he continued. ‘This was Election changing ‘stuff,’ Election Interference and, quite simply, Election Fraud at a level never seen before.’
Also on Wednesday, reports emerged revealing that USAID, which was shuttered this week by Trump at the advice of Elon Musk, paid $8 million to Politico for employees’ subscriptions.
Trump says this is further proof of the ‘biggest scandal of them all’ between Democrats, government bureaucracy and the media.
He questioned whether these entities are paying other media outlets, specifically The New York Times, to engage in activity that he claims amounts to ‘election interference’ and ‘fraud.’
President Donald Trump is furious over recent allegations media outlets gave Democrats and government agencies ‘favorable coverage’
He questioned if Democrats ‘paid off’ CBS News to favorably edit its interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris just one month before the 2024 presidential election
In al all caps post to Truth Social, Trump wrote: ‘LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN (sic) AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS.’
‘Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did???’ the president questioned, and warned ‘Democrats can’t hide from this one.’
Trump sued CBS News in October in a Texas federal court, claiming the network purposely edited the interview to put him at a disadvantage in the November 6, 2024 presidential election.
The complaint filed by the Center for American Rights accusing 60 Minutes of selectively editing the interview, was initially dismissed on January 16, four days before Trump’s second inauguration.
But Trump’s newly appointed FCC Chairman, Brendan Carr, reopened the case immediately after taking up the position.
Release of the united version of the interview has the president fired-up all over again, and he is particularly peeved with the way CBS edited a question regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict in Palestinian territory of Gaza.
The full version shows that while Harris gave a lengthy answer when asked about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, CBS only aired about seven seconds on the 60 Minutes episode with the presidential candidate.
He also slammed the now-defunct government agency USAID for paying $8 million to Politico for subscriptions, and claimed it’s part of the ‘biggest scandal of them all’ between Democrats and the ‘fake news’ media
‘[W]as CBS paid for committing this FRAUD???’ Trump questioned on his social media website Thursday. ‘Many other questions to come!’
‘This will go down as the biggest Broadcasting SCANDAL in History!!!’ he insisted.
CBS released a statement on the release of the full taped interview.
‘As the full transcript shows, we edited the interview to ensure that as much of the vice president’s answers to 60 Minutes’ many questions were included in our original broadcast while fairly representing those answers,’ the network wrote.
