{"id":115093,"date":"2025-11-03T05:20:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T05:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/115093\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T05:20:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T05:20:11","slug":"trump-praises-cbs-owners-boasts-of-paramount-payout-on-60-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/115093\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Praises CBS Owners, Boasts Of Paramount Payout On ’60 Minutes’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDonald Trump<\/a>\u2018s wide-ranging 60 Minutes<\/a> interview did not include one moment, when he praised the new owners of CBS-parent Paramount and the \u201cgreat new leader\u201d put in charge of the news division, Bari Weiss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI see good things happening in the news,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI really do. And I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership. I think it\u2019s the greatest thing that\u2019s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe interview was his first with 60 Minutes in five years, and the first since suing CBS over the way that the show edited an October, 2024 interview with Kamala Harris. CBS parent Paramount Global settled the lawsuit for $16 million, even though it previously said that it was baseless and many legal experts saw it as dubious. That settlement was widely seen as a way to remove a hurdle to obtaining the Trump administration\u2019s regulatory approval for Skydance\u2019s purchase of Paramount, something that happened a couple of weeks later.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince then, CBS under new owner David Ellison has made a series of moves that have been seen as efforts to shift the news division rightward, and perhaps appease the White House. That has included the hiring of an ombudsman from a rightward think tank. Last month, Ellison tapped Bari Weiss, founder of the center right opinion site Free Press, as the editor-in-chief of the news division.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump said, \u201cI don\u2019t know her, but I hear she\u2019s a great person. But\u00a060 Minutes\u00a0was forced to pay me\u2013 a lot of money because they took her 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\u2019t have fake news. You\u2019ve gotta have legit news.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Trump\u2019s comments on CBS News and Weiss didn\u2019t air during the broadcast, Norah O\u2019Donnell, who conducted the interview, told viewers of the Paramount settlement, but noted that it \u201cdid not include an apology or an admission of wrongdoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Harris interview aired Oct. 7, weeks before the election. The show aired the first part of her answer to a question on a Face the Nation preview a day earlier, and the second part of the answer on the 60 Minutes broadcast \u2014 editing techniques common across the networks.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe irony is that Trump\u2019s CBS sitdown itself was heavily edited, given that it lasted 73 minutes<\/a>, but only about 28 minutes aired. When CBS settled with Trump, the network said that the show would also publish the unedited transcript of complete interviews with presidential candidates, which it did in the president\u2019s case. \u201cNetwork edits, you say? Lawsuit time,\u201d Meidas Touch, the anti-Trump publisher, riffed after the interview.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeiss\u2019 hire has put a new level of scrutiny on the news division, and O\u2019Donnell\u2019s interview with Trump is likely to be picked apart, for what was left in and what was left out, and for questions asked and those not addressed. O\u2019Donnell pressed him on issues like the government shutdown, Venezuela and China, as well as his recent pardon of the founder of the crypto marketplace Binance, Changpeng Zhao. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t know who he is,\u201d\u00a0Trump said of the man he pardoned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know who he is,\u201d says President Trump, claiming he doesn\u2019t know Changpeng Zhao (aka C.Z.) a man he pardoned.<\/p>\n

C.Z. is a billionaire who pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws. The government said at the time that he allowed terrorist groups to\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/Qpv9C2hw91<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 3, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tShe also pressed him on the ICE raids that have seen so many social media videos of masked agents hauling off parents in front of their children. <\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Donnell asked, \u201cAmericans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo. I think they haven\u2019t gone far enough because we\u2019ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso covered for a bit on the broadcast was what is likely to be a major issue of Tuesday\u2019s off-year elections: The high cost of living, as inflation has gone up, not down, this year. Trump told O\u2019Donnell that she was \u201cwrong\u201d that grocery prices have gone up. He also claimed that the economy was doing great, that 401Ks have doubled, even as his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said earlier on Sunday that some sectors of the economy are in recession.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt least in the broadcast portion, there were no major blowups, as there was when Trump last sat down with the show, in 2020 with Lesley Stahl.<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Donnell faced the same problem that any other journalist granted a sit down with Trump faces: As he fires off dubious claims and falsities, the interview risks getting bogged down in fact checking. Instead, she generally picked her battles, pressing the president on critical points, but letting other claims slide, as when he said that he had \u201csolved eight wars.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Donnell had some tense back and forths with Trump, as she tried to hold him to claims that he and the GOP have a healthcare plan alternative to Obamacare, something that even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has questioned.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump at times went into default mode, which is to say that he blamed Joe Biden or Barack Obama. When it came to the rising cost of health insurance premiums, at the center of the Democrats\u2019 demands to end the government shutdown, Trump pledged that \u201call they have to do is let the country open and we\u2019ll fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMr. President, with all due respect, you\u2019ve been talking about fixing the healthcare insurance plan since 2015,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump continued on, insisting there was a fix.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut where is that plan?\u201d O\u2019Donnell asked.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump never answered.<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Donnell also questioned the Trump administration\u2019s prosecution of opponents, including James Comey, Letitia James and John Bolton.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDid you instruct the Department of Justice to go after them?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNot in any way, shape or form,\u201d Trump said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to instruct them because they were so dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show aired Trump\u2019s Truth Social post from September, when he addressed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, directly, and said that Comey and James were \u201cguilty as hell\u201d and \u201cjustice must be served now.\u201d Comey was indicted five days later, and James later in the month.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIs this retribution?\u201d O\u2019Donnell asked.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh, it\u2019s the opposite. I think I\u2019ve been very mild-mannered.\u201d<\/p>\n