Former President Donald Trump sued CBS and CBS Interactive today in federal court for election interference because the far-left news network edited one of Vice President Kamala Harris’ answers in her interview with 60 Minutes.
As The New American reported when the fakery was revealed, editors replaced an answer to a question from reporter Bill Whitaker with a new answer so viewers wouldn’t think Harris is a buffoon.
The network admitted the monkeyshines, stood by the decision, and stood by its offer to interview President Trump.
Trump’s answer: Gimme $10 billion for deceiving the American people.
The Fake Answer
The legal trouble for the once-respected network began when it decided Harris’ answer to a tough question from Whitaker wasn’t what it should be. Solution: Change it.
Given the billions of dollars in military aid the United States gives Israel, Whitaker asked, shouldn’t it listen to the Biden administration, which “pressed [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] to agree to a ceasefire. … You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?”
“The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles,” Harris replied
“But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening,” Whitaker pressed.
Harris’ original answer ran as a promo on Face the Nation on October 6:
Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of 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.
It was classic Harris word salad.
But that isn’t what aired on 60 Minutes in prime time the next night, or the answer that appears in the published transcript:
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.
Once the fakery was exposed, Trump demanded that CBS released the full transcript. CBS refused.
“60 Minutes gave an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes, the network claimed:
Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response. When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21-minute-long segment.
Trump threatened to sue if CBS didn’t come clean and let the world see Harris stumble through her answer.
The Lawsuit
It was no idle threat, and now the network must defend a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
The 19-page action accuses CBS of “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to (a) confuse, deceive, and mislead the public, and (b) attempt to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party as the heated 2024 Presidential Election — which President Trump is leading — approaches its conclusion,” in violation of Texas law.
Harris’ campaign is failing, even with the protective mantle of the far-left, pro-Harris Mainstream Media, the lawsuit avers. So “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.”
The lawsuit alleges that “millions of Americans,” notably Texans, “were confused and misled by the two doctored Interview versions.”
CBS’s statement on the editing proves that Trump was “accurate” when he said that the interview “was doctored to confuse, deceive, and mislead the American People in order to try and interfere in the election on behalf of Kamala.”
Like Trump and other critics, two FCC commissioners CBS should release the full transcript.
The lawsuit avers that “CBS violated this public trust and, by reason of its recalcitrance, violates and continues to violate” Texas law.
The lawsuit also cites an FCC complaint by the Center for American Rights.
Granted, the lawsuit admits, CBS has a right to edit its broadcasts. But “CBS crossed a line when its production reaches the point of so transforming an interviewee’s answer that it is a fundamentally different answer,” the complaint says. “This CBS may not do.”
Misled Viewers
Per the lawsuit:
CBS engaged in multiple false, misleading, and deceptive acts, including … doctoring Kamala’s answer in order to attempt and improve Kamala’s electoral chances and try to damage President Trump’s electoral chances.
The editing violated the federal prohibition of “broadcast distortion,” the lawsuit alleges, “because the source of Kamala’s edited answer in the Interview was not, in fact, Kamala, but CBS taking its editorial pen to confuse viewers as to what she said.”
The lawsuit calls the editing an “unconscionable … brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election.”
As well, “CBS’s false, misleading, and deceptive conduct” damaged Trump, a consumer as defined by Texas law.
The lawsuit demands $10 billion in compensatory damages.
