'Faulty premise': CBS lawyers clap back at Trump's legal threat

Attorneys for CBS News are pushing back on former President Donald Trump's legal threats to the network over Vice President Kamala Harris' interview, CNN reported Wednesday.

The letter, delivered to Trump's counsel, noted that CBS has a First Amendment right to do what it wants with Harris' interview, and that Trump's legal team hasn't provided any basis to sue over how that information was presented.

The controversy comes after Trump refused to sit for his interview with CBS News, in part due to lingering resentment over his grilling by Lesley Stahl in 2020. He accused CBS of improperly doctoring the interview with Harris — even threatening on social media that the network should be stripped of its broadcast license.

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In a recent legal threat to the network, Trump claimed that CBS “intentionally misled the public by broadcasting a skillfully edited interview” that was “aimed at causing confusion among the electorate regarding Vice President Kamala Harris’s abilities, intelligence, and appeal” and threatened legal action.

CBS has denied that the interview with Harris was doctored in the first place; CBS Vice President for Legal Affairs Gayle C. Sproul wrote in response to Trump's letter that the whole thing is “based on the faulty premise that ’60 Minutes distorted its interview” with Harris “in order to present her in a positive light.” This is not true, she said, and insofar as there was any editing of the footage at all, “Editing is a necessity for all broadcasters to enable them to present the news in the time available, and that is what ’60 Minutes’ did here, as it does with its other reports.”

This comes at the same time as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis challenges the First Amendment in a different way, by threatening criminal prosecution of TV stations that air a political ad in support of a state constitutional amendment to restore abortion rights.