Transcript Proves the 60 Minutes Scandal Was Always Fake
Donald Trump's complaints were always meritless, but CBS' capitulation sets a dangerous precedent for the future of the news media.
An issue that came to define the closing days of the 2024 presidential election, oddly, was a single televised interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate. Republican candidate Donald Trump claimed the interview was misleadingly edited to Harris' benefit and demanded investigations—which he, as the newly elected president, could potentially order.
This week, CBS released the transcript and raw footage of the interview, demonstrating how pointless the controversy always was but also potentially setting a dangerous precedent for the future of news media.
In October, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker interviewed Harris for 60 Minutes. The interview that aired in the primetime broadcast lasted about 20 minutes and showed Whitaker and Harris speaking in the vice presidential residence, interspersed with footage from a "walk and talk" conversation and a joint interview with Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R–Wyo.), who had endorsed and was campaigning with her.
The day before the interview aired, CBS played a clip on its Sunday morning Face the Nation, but Harris' answer was different than what later aired in the primetime broadcast.
In the Face the Nation clip, Whitaker asks Harris about Israel's ongoing war in Gaza and the Biden administration's dealings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When Whitaker notes that it seems Netanyahu "is not listening," Harris responds, "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."
But on the 60 Minutes broadcast, in response to the same question, Harris replies, "We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end."
In a post on X with a video comparing the clips, Trump said the edit was "totally illegal" and constituted "Election Interference."
A giant Fake News Scam by CBS & 60 Minutes. Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better. A FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal. TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE. Election Interference.… pic.twitter.com/JRxSda3NeC
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2024
"She gave an answer that was from a loony bin," Trump claimed two weeks later at a campaign rally. "They said, 'We can't have that.' They took the answer out in its entirety, threw it away, and they put another answer in. And I think it's the biggest scandal in broadcasting history."
CBS denied any wrongdoing, saying in a statement that the excerpt "used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response." In a second statement, the network clarified that "the interview was not doctored" and that "60 Minutes did not hide any part of Vice President Kamala Harris's answer to the question at issue."
"The American people deserve the full, unedited transcript from Kamala's sit-down interview," Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson at the time, told the New York Post in a statement. Trump later sued CBS, alleging consumer fraud and requesting $10 billion in damages.
The Center for American Rights, a conservative nonprofit, filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) alleging "news distortion." In January, the FCC requested the "full, unedited transcript and camera feeds" from the interview.
This week, CBS released the transcript and raw footage online. Together, they make clear how pointless this controversy truly was.
Here is Harris' full answer to Whitaker's question, as quoted in the transcript and backed up by the footage:
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. And we're not going to stop doing that. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.
So…Harris' full, unedited answer is a combination of what aired in primetime and what aired on Sunday morning, separated only by the interstitial phrase "and we're not going to stop doing that."
Even if the cuts had been heavier, it is perfectly within a journalist's discretion to edit an interviewee's answers for purposes of clarity or brevity, so long as the edit does not distort the answer's intent: NPR's Ethics Handbook says it assures that "the people we speak with know that the discussions will be edited—but that we will be true to the meaning of their words."
Granted, neither of Harris' answers is particularly compelling; the first part, which aired on Face the Nation, is superficial, and her delivery is halting and stilted. And the portion that played in primetime, while more forceful and succinct, doesn't quite answer Whitaker's prompt.
But to say this constitutes a scandal—much less, as Trump claimed, that CBS switched out one answer for another—is simply false.
The release of the transcript and raw footage lays bare just how fake the controversy always was, but it also establishes a dangerous precedent.
Former CBS executive Jay Newman told CNN's Brian Stelter that the network had always "aggressively protected outtakes and raw video" because "the strong feeling was these were considered 'work product' – akin to a reporter's notes."
"The precedent set by releasing these to a government agency is abhorrent," Newman added. Not to mention the precedent set by caving to Trump, who is famously both litigious and hostile to media he sees as unfavorable.
The New York Times reported last week that even though Trump's lawsuit against CBS was widely seen as frivolous, executives at Paramount, CBS' parent company, were considering settling so as to "increase the odds that the Trump administration does not block or delay their planned multibillion-dollar merger." At the same time, journalists at CBS opposed any settlement over "[what] they consider tantamount to a politician's standard-issue gripes about a news organization's editorial judgment."
While the 60 Minutes transcript and footage show CBS didn't do anything wrong, their release still sets a precedent that Trump can bully a news outlet into submission for nothing more than reporting news he doesn't like.
