The Republican presidential candidate sues CBS for $10 billion, accusing the network of deliberately manipulating an interview with Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris just weeks before the presidential election to influence the outcome.
The interview with Harris was conducted on October 6 on the 60 Minutes program. Trump’s lawyers claimed that the channel’s producers deceived the American electorate by misleadingly and inaccurately editing Harris’ response to a question about why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not listen to the United States.
After the program aired, Harris was widely mocked by conservatives and other political opponents for giving a rambling and incoherent answer in the interview – but when parts of the interview were later aired in the channel’s election special, her answer was suddenly edited and shortened, making it appear much more focused.
”President Trump brings this action to redress the immense harm caused to him, to his campaign, and to tens of millions of citizens in Texas and across America by CBS’s deceptive broadcasting conduct”, the lawsuit states, calling the channel’s actions a “deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news“.
#BREAKING: President Trump has filed a $10 BILLION lawsuit against CBS News for “deceptively doctoring” Kamala Harris’ 60 Minutes interview.
LET’S GO!
In a letter to CBS News, Trump’s counsel said the network “intentionally misled the public by broadcasting a skillfully… pic.twitter.com/9oXipIy5U8
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 31, 2024
CBS refuses to release transcript
Trump’s lawyers further argue that news organizations “are responsible for accurately representing the truth of events, not distorting an interview to try and falsely make their preferred candidate appear coherent and decisive, which Kamala most certainly is not”.
They also point out that CBS’s actions meant that viewers did not have the opportunity to hear for themselves what the Democratic presidential candidate really answered to what they considered to be a very important question – and that this is particularly serious because the manipulation took place so close to the presidential election.
The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Texas, and CBS itself denies that it manipulated the interview in any way. They will also not release any transcript of the interview.
