OAN Staff James Meyers
8:25 AM – Saturday, February 1, 2025
CBS has announced that it will turn over an unedited transcript of its October interview with Kamala Harris to the Federal Communications Commission, which was part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing feud with the network over how it handled a story of his defeated opponent.
This comes after Trump sued CBS for $10 billion over the “60 Minutes” interview, saying it was deceptively edited to help make Harris look good.
Meanwhile, multiple reports have indicated that CBS’ parent company, Paramount, has been discussing with Trump’s lawyers about a possible settlement.
CBS said on Friday that it was called by Brendan Carr, Trump’s appointee as FCC chairman, to turn over the transcripts and camera feeds of the interview for a parallel investigation by the commission.
The show has since resisted releasing transcripts for the interview and all of its interviews, to help avoid being second-guessed on its editing process.
The case has been closely watched by advocates for press freedom by journalists within CBS, whose lawyers called Trump’s lawsuit “completely without merit” and said they would be fighting the case.
If the case is settled by Paramount, it will become the latest high profile settlement Trump has been able to win in recent weeks. In December, ABC News paid $16 million to settle defamation charges brought by Trump against anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Additionally, on Wednesday, Meta agreed to settle a lawsuit brought on by Trump for $25 million. The lawsuit was due to Trump’s suspension from Facebook after the January 6th protests.
The Harris interview brought attention due to CBS News ,showing the then-vice president giving out completely different responses to a question given by correspondent Bill Whitaker in clips that were aired on “Face the Nation” on October 6th and the next night on “60 Minutes.”
Whitaker asked a question concerning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whitaker ended by saying to Harris: “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening?”
In the October 5th version, aired on “Face the Nation,” Harris replies to the question by saying: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in several movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”
However, the jagged response didn’t make it into CBS’s “60 Minutes,” which aired the next day. Instead, that broadcast had a different response with Harris delivering a more simple answer.
“We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end,” Harris said in that version.
“To paper over Kamala’s ‘word salad’ weakness, CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news,” Trump’s suit alleged.
At the time, the network said each clip came from a lengthy response by Harris to Whitaker’s question, but they were edited to fit time constraints on both broadcasts.
In his lawsuit, filed on November 1st, Trump claimed that it was deceptive editing to help benefit Harris and used “partisan and unlawful acts of voter interference.”
Currently, Paramount executives are seeking Trump administration approval of a sale of the company to another entertainment firm, Skydance.
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