Earlier this week, CBS News arranged an interview between newly sworn-in President Donald Trump and anchor Tony Dokoupil on “CBS Evening News,” and it went beyond expectations.
The New York Times reported Saturday that White House press secretary Caroline Levitt told producers and anchors that Trump did not want the exchange edited. “He said, ‘Please make sure we don’t cut the ribbon and make sure the interview is fully released.’ He told Dokoupil and executive producer Kim Harvey, ‘If it’s not fully released, we’re going to sue,'” Levitt told Dokoupil.
Such actions are not unexpected when it comes to the Trump administration. President Trump won a $16 million settlement from Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, after filing a lawsuit over the way his 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was edited. Although legal experts felt Trump’s lawsuit was meritless, Paramount was in a bind — it needed approval from U.S. regulators to sell to a new owner, now called Paramount Skydance. Mr. Trump also obtained legal fees from Walt Disney Co. and sought to involve other media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and the BBC, in the legal battle. Paramount’s decision, in part, led to the departure of two senior CBS News executives who oversaw “60 Minutes” and other operations.
CBS News said in a statement Saturday that Levitt’s request did not influence its decision to air Dukopil’s 13-minute interview with President Trump in its entirety at a Ford plant in Michigan. “The moment we scheduled this interview, we made our own decision to air it in its entirety, unedited.”
Still, CBS News has capitulated to similar demands in the past, and the move is seen as sacrificing its journalistic independence. CBS News agreed in September to stop editing interview tapes of reporters appearing on its Sunday public affairs show “Face the Nation” after complaints from the Trump administration about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s appearance on the show. She made a number of false or unproven statements during her interrogation of Kilmer Abergo Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was deported despite having protected legal status in the United States. CBS News provided only a portion of the entire interview with Noem and published the entire exchange online.
Trump’s threats come even as CBS News works to give government officials more time on its programs. Under recently appointed editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, both CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes are opening up more space for dialogue with stakeholders, including U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who spoke with Doukopil in the third segment of the weekend broadcast following the U.S. invasion of Venezuela. In October, “60 Minutes” provided a report to U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner that provided insight into Israel and Hamas’ efforts to end the recent conflict in Gaza.
The threat from the White House comes as Paramount Skydance moves to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s media assets, even though the company has already brokered a deal to sell its streaming and studio operations to Netflix. Such agreements would also require regulatory approval.
