Trump’s ’60 Minutes’ lawsuit is outrageous, dangerous
By Alex Alben for The Seattle Times, February 7, 2025
Then-candidate Donald Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris is outrageous, unprecedented and threatens to shake the core of American journalism.
Filed in October during the heat of the presidential campaign, the suit claims that CBS committed a “malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion” in airing the interview and seeks $10 billion in damages. Afraid of the new Trump administration’s ability to slow-walk a proposed merger with another studio, Paramount Pictures, which owns CBS, has reportedly entertained the idea of settling the case and paying off Trump rather than pursue the court case to its ultimate conclusion. Trump has successfully pressured the FCC to obtain an unedited transcript of the interview from CBS, itself dangerous interference with the freedom of the press.
