Doing a Solid For Trump

Donald Trump was right about two things.

When CBS' 60 Minutes aired an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris during last year's campaign, Trump argued that CBS should not have edited her answer about the Israel-Hamas war. He believed the network's parent company, Paramount, would cave to his demands.  He sued the latter corporation for $20 billion and it settled for $16 million, a hefty fee for exercising a freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Editing any interview can be misleading and editing one of a major party presidential candidate or of a President does the public a disservice.

When CBS aired on Sunday evening an interview with Donald, it showed on air only 28 of the 73 minutes taped.. The Trump campaign should be relieved it did so.

That's not primarily because Donald made a fool of himself on the 45 minute portion, which was far less than the 74 minute video CBS aired online. (According to CBS' senior correspondent Norah O'Donnell, who conducted the interview, the exchange itself ran for almost 90 minutes) .Trump typically makes a fool of himself, which is of little import because he is wrapped in a layer of Teflon unequaled in American history.

One of Trump's most interesting critics, former US Representative from Illinois, understands:

On this @60Minutes interview. Trump lies as he breathes. He lies every time he opens his mouth. We’ve never ever faced this before. And the media still has no fucking clue how to deal with it. It is pointless to interview him if you don’t fact check his lies. It’s just pointless.

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) November 3, 2025

 O'Donnell did check Trump's facts periodically. However, she was was stymied, whether by Paramount, CBS News, from informing the interviewee and the viewers in most of the cases in which the President made an untruthful remark.

CNN posted an article, read by relatively few people, by its fact-checker extraordinaire, Daniel Dale. cited six examples of Trump citing "fictional" numbers and added "Trump made a variety of additional false claims on several subjects, including the government shutdown, the artificial intelligence boom, tariffs, his first impeachment and his former legal battle with '60 Minutes' itself."

But we're used to that. The man's lips move, he lies. However, during her time with Trump, O'Donnell asked about at least 16 topics: tariffs, artificial intelligence, the stock market, grocery prices, inflation, Taiwan, nuclear weapons testing, Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, Venezuela, Israel/Gaza, Abraham Accords, Israel, the government shutdown, health care, the filibuster. There may have been more but it's hard to focus attention properly during, or on, a trainwreck.

If an interviewer jumps from subject to subject, victory goes to the road team. Almost all successful public figures, especially Trump, hit a home run/score a touchdown/execute a slam dunk when the questioner does not hone in on an answer. O'Donnell tried, but was expected (or, less likely, decided on her own) to hit on nearly every possible topic.

And so President Trump gets to flood the zone with lies, accusations, half-truths, and more lies. An after the fact review of Donald's statements, such as undertaken by Daniel Dale, is necessary but not sufficient. Trump can make false, sometimes vicious, statements willy-nilly with little pushback because the interviewer wants to cover yet another topic. The result, in part, is that the interviewee controls the interview.

On one occasion, O'Donnell stated "I know our time with you is limited. I hear you." She said at another time  "and I know my time is- is limited with you so I want to be respectful- of you."  And of course "I know your time is limited so I do want to make sure I get through another- more of these topics."  She stopped just short of apologizing to Trump for limiting his time to get his talking points out.

The networks do the American people no favor if they bring on Donald Trump, only to allow him to ramble, talking about anything he feels like. Giving Donald Trump a platform to promote his propaganda is worse than doing no interview at all.

           

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