US Politics
Trump interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes to air this weekend for the first time since he sued over the program
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The CBS News program 60 Minutes will air an in-depth interview with President Donald Trump on Sunday, marking the first time he has appeared there since he launched and later settled a multi-million dollar lawsuit over one of the show’s reports featuring Kamala Harris.
During the interview, which was recorded Friday, anchor Norah O’Donnell speaks with the president about China, Venezuela, Israel, the government shutdown, immigration, and his attempts to deploy the National Guard to cities around the country, according to CBS News.
Trump sued CBS in October alleging 60 Minutes had deceptively edited an interview with his 2024 presidential election rival Vice President Kamala Harris.
The network initially fought the suit, calling it “meritless,” but in July CBS and its parent company Paramount settled with Trump for $16 million.
Trump’s dispute with the network had far-reaching political, economic, and journalistic ramifications.
In April, a top producer at 60 Minutes announced he was quitting, alleging the storied news show had lost its “journalistic independence.”
Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’s Late Show, criticized the eventual settlement as a “big fat bribe,” as part of his regular criticisms of Trump. That same month, the network announced the Late Show will shutter next year.
Executives described the decision to cancel Colbert as a purely financial one, though critics argued the network was bending the knee to appease the Trump administration, which held sway over a then-pending merger between Paramount and Skydance, a media company led by David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder and Trump backer Larry Ellison.
The merger was approved in August, and CBS News is now led by Bari Weiss, a former New York Times opinion writer and founder of the centrist publication The Free Press, a new media outlet that frequently criticizes so-called “woke” topics.
At CBS, long-time journalists have reportedly expressed skepticism towards Weiss, whose tenure has been marked by immediate layoffs.
Weiss has reportedly used her connections and general acceptability to the right to serve as the network’s “chief booker,” helping secure interviews with Trump allies including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who played an important behind-the-scenes role in negotiations around the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Weiss has also reportedly sought to court high-profile on-air talent to jump to the network such as Fox News’ Bret Baier and CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
