Donald Trump is escalating his battle against CBS after the ’60 Minutes’ interview with Kamala Harris, with his lawyer sending a letter demanding the network release a transcript of the interview with his rival.
Days after the interview aired, Trump accused the program of “rigging” the interview to cut out a word salad answer about Israel.
Now Trump, who has a long history of filing lawsuits against media organizations (a judge early this year ordered him to pay $400,000 in legal fees to the New York Times), is now casting doubt on the network’s printed transcript released.
“News organizations like CBS have a responsibility to accurately report the truth of events, not to distort an interview to try to make their preferred candidate seem coherent and decisive, which Harris certainly is not,” Trump wrote- attorney Edward Andrew Paltzik.
“CBS’s actions leave the public unable to distinguish which Kamala Harris they are seeing: the candidate or an editor’s puppet behind the scenes,” he wrote, using a term Trump loyalists sometimes apply to Harris.
The letter accuses the network of engaging in “news distortion” and its producers of “deliberately misleading the public by airing an expertly edited transcript of the interview while choosing to release other portions online ‘.
It hints at possible legal action by saying: ‘Please acknowledge receipt of this letter within 48 hours and further confirm your intention to cooperate with these demands.’
He writes that it was intended to “create confusion among the electorate about the capabilities, intelligence and appeal of Vice President Kamala Harris.”
That reflects another attack from Trump. He called Harris a “stupid person” on Monday.
Trump published the letter on his Truth Social account to ratchet up the tension. And he barked at a local CBS reporter during his visit to a Philadelphia suburb of McDonald’s when she identified herself as an employee.
That came on a day he attacked the “fake news” media in a side note from the McDonald’s drive-thru window. He also criticized the “fake news” media on Monday and demanded that reporters interview Kamala Harris’ 86-year-old father.
The channel last weekend backtracked on claims that the program was ‘deceptively edited’.
It came after the network first aired a long and rambling statement from Harris on CBS Face the Nation last Sunday. But the next night she gave a more succinct answer during a prime time special.
Kamala Harris gives a long and winding answer in a CBS interview that was replaced by a more succinct answer in the segment that aired on 60 Minutes
Trump has accused the channel of fraud and said it should be taken off the air, despite clear First Amendment issues such a move would raise.
“Former President Donald Trump is accusing 60 Minutes of deceptively editing our October 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is not true,” CBS said on Sunday.
CBS explained that the interview had to be shortened to fit into a 21-minute program, and that it was standard procedure to shorten long answers to cover more topics.
“60 Minutes provided an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a longer portion of her response than the one on 60 Minutes,” the network said in a statement.
‘Same question. Same answer. But another part of the response. When we edit an interview, whether it’s with a politician, an athlete or a movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and current.
“The 60 Minutes portion of her response was more concise, allowing time for other topics in a broad 21-minute segment.”
The network also noted that Trump “withdrew from his interview with 60 Minutes and the vice president participated.”
Trump was a no-show after demanding an apology for his controversial 2020 interview with Leslie Stahl.