Trump stuns after blasting CBS interview edit — then ordering edits to his own interview

CBS News is under fire after heavily editing Donald Trump's "60 Minutes" interview with Norah O'Donnell, but one detail that was edited out led to some chuckles from a tech reporter.

TechDirt's Mike Masnick wrote Monday that Trump told "60 Minutes" to edit out his brag about a lawsuit against CBS News for editing the show's interview with Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.

Last year, Trump sued CBS, claiming it made changes to make Harris sound better. In fact, networks often edit interviews when they go on too long. In Trump's case, however, he had specific demands about what he wanted CBS to withhold from the public.

According to a transcript, Trump told O'Donnell, "And actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not– you have a great– I think you have a great new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise is a great– from what I know. I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person. But '60 Minutes' was forced to pay me– 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’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening. I see..."

O'Donnell tried to interrupt, "Mr. President–"

"I see good things happening in the news. I 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’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press," Trump continued.

CBS/Paramount was purchased by Larry Ellison and his son, both of whom are big supporters of Trump.

"Again, I feel the need to repeat this because it is so incredibly stupid. Literally in the same sentence where he says CBS had to pay him 'a lotta money' because it edited a 60 Minutes interview, he tells them to edit the interview, not to air that section. Then he claims 'you can’t have fake news,'" wrote Masnick. "Even though what he’s claiming is literally fake news. They didn’t pay him because they changed the answer. They paid him to get their merger done. Everyone knows it."

He acknowledged that there are certainly more important pieces of the interview that matter to the country and American law, but he said the "narcissistic simpleton’s understanding of the world" was enough to inspire Masnick to call it out

"And he’s in charge. It’s crazy," said Masnick.

Read the full piece here.