Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) floated the prospect of filing a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission early Monday morning over President Donald Trump‘s edited 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night.
Schumer’s comments stem from Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News and 60 Minutes over the news program’s pre-election interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris last fall. Arguing that the interview’s favorable edits toward Harris constituted media bias and election interference, Trump ultimately settled with CBS’s parent company for $16 million in July.
Schumer said if Trump could target the network over a heavily edited interview, he can too.
“Maybe I should file a complaint with the FCC against the Trump White House for editing his unhinged 60 Minutes interview,” the top Senate Democrat posted on X. “It will use the exact same language Trump lodged against Vice President Harris.”
The new interview was edited down from 73 minutes to 27 minutes, drawing outrage from liberals over the perception that CBS now favors Trump under Bari Weiss’s editorial leadership. However, CBS released Trump’s unedited interview and full transcript in conjunction with the condensed interview that aired on Sunday.
CBS only released Harris’s complete interview with the transcript when it faced scrutiny from Trump’s FCC, led by Brendan Carr.
“So CBS settled Trump’s lawsuit where he frivolously sued because they edited Kamala Harris’s interview so it would fit into their air time,” MeidasTouch Editor-In-Chief Ron Filipkowski wrote on social media. “Then CBS does a 73 minute interview of Trump where they made big edits from the version that was broadcast. They aired 28 of 73 minutes.”
One user challenged Filipkowski’s argument, saying Harris’s interview was edited not to fit into the program’s airtime but “to change answers, making it look like she said something she didn’t.”
Conservatives were particularly upset with Harris’s sit-down interview last year after CBS made edits to make her appear more cogent and not as meandering in her remarks.
“60 Minutes did not air the part where Trump discusses his success in extorting the network and calls them Fake News,” the Bulwark‘s Tim Miller said on X. “This edit is harmful to me and I’m considering suing.”
In the portion that Miller cites, Trump referenced his $16 million settlement with Paramount Global, now known as Paramount Skydance, and complimented CBS’s new editor-in-chief, who was brought in to shake up the outlet.
“I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person,” Trump said of Weiss in the wide-ranging CBS interview. “But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took [Harris’s] answer out that was so bad it was election-changing two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news.”
The White House circulated both the edited and unedited versions of the interview on its Rapid Response 47 account.
Adding to the discourse on social media, Trump’s former White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggested a possible settlement could be forthcoming over CBS’s edits of the president.
“Paramount paid President Trump $16 million for editing a Kamala interview in order to influence the outcome of the election,” Spicer posted on X. “Then they edited an hour and 13 minute 60 Minutes interview with him to 27 minutes…..how much this time?”
It appears Trump expected CBS wouldn’t air the interview in full due to the limited amount of time on-air, based on his comments to 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O’Donnell.
“And actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you,” he told O’Donnell.
Earlier in the interview, Trump made a similar statement when discussing his administration’s crackdown in Washington, D.C. “You don’t have to use that one,” he said.
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Trump has not yet publicly disclosed his thoughts on CBS’s treatment of him following the interview, although he expressed optimism before it aired.
“I will be interviewed on 60 Minutes right after the Kansas City / Buffalo NFL Football Game,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Hopefully they will treat me as well as they did Kamala. Enjoy!”