The Network Significantly Trims Donald Trump's 60 Minutes Interview, Omitting Boast About Broadcaster Paying The President Large Funds

The CBS News program the long-running news magazine heavily trimmed a conversation featuring the former president broadcast Sunday night, representing the initial sit-down with the program in five years.

Trump spoke with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A complete transcript of the interview was later released, alongside a 73-minute online version of the conversation.

These cuts are notable because, exactly one year before the president's interview with O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort, he had sued the network over the editing of a 60 Minutes segment featuring the vice president, claiming it had been manipulated to help her chances in the presidential election.

While numerous legal experts largely rejected the legal action as “meritless” and unlikely to succeed under the first amendment, the broadcaster settled with Trump for $16m this past summer. As part of the agreement, the network had agreed to release full records of future interviews of presidential candidates.

During the opening of Sunday’s show, the correspondent informed the audience that the parent company settled Trump’s lawsuit, adding that the resolution did not include an apology or expression of regret”.

During the interview, in one segment that did not air, Trump needled CBS about the agreement restating his allegations against the network.

“Actually the program paid me a lotta money. You need not include this, since I do not wish to cause you discomfort, and I trust that you are not,” the president stated. “However the show had to pay me a large amount since they took Harris’s response from the segment that was so bad, it was decisive, two nights before the election. And they put a different response in. They compensated me handsomely because of it. We cannot tolerate fake news. We must have legit news. And I think this is occurring.”

During another segment not broadcast of the interview, the president commended the acquisition of CBS to new owners and said the broadcaster's new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, was a “excellent addition”.

Trump admitted he was not acquainted with the editor, but told the interviewer: “People say she’s a great person.

“In my view you've acquired a great new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman now heading your whole enterprise, is a great – based on what I've heard,” he remarked.

The president was especially effusive in praising David Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison, the new owner of the network's parent firm, Paramount, through their company Skydance.

“In my opinion a very positive development to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS under new management,” the president commented. “I believe it is a major improvement that’s happened in a long time toward a transparent and good press.”

O’Donnell did not directly respond to the president’s comments about Weiss and the owners.

Included in Trump’s many answers that were edited out were several comments questioning the legitimacy of the last election, which he said “was rigged and unlawfully taken”.

At one point in the conversation, in a segment that was not aired, the president attempted to persuade O’Donnell to acknowledge that crime was down in Washington DC, where she lives.

“You reside in DC. You know that too,” the president remarked, asking the correspondent: “Do you see any change?”

“I believe I have been occupied too hard,” O’Donnell replied. “I have not gotten outside often … I get in my car to the studio and I go home.”

The president responded “that is an evasion” and insisted that the journalist noticed a difference.

Trump then implied that the back-and-forth didn’t need be included on the show.

“You don’t have to use that one,” he said. “No concerns, it's fine, I don’t want to embarrass her.”