The CBS News program “60 Minutes” has interviewed every major-party candidate in Presidential elections since 1968. Not this year. Trump rejected the invitation. After Kamala’s interview appeared, Trump said repeatedly that her interview had been edited to show her more favorably. He complained to the FCC and demanded that CBS lose its license.
Trump loves to play the victim and the martyr, which helps him connect to his base. Playing the victim enables his base to forget that he is a billionaire, who lives in splendor, and a draft-dodger who belittles the military.
CBS doesn’t usually respond to complaints, but they did this time. They also invited him to appear at a time of his choosing. Trump prefers friendly interviewers.
The Los Angeles Times reported:
In a rare rebuke, the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” denied charges by former President Trump that the program doctored an answer in Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent interview to make her look better to viewers.
CBS ran an excerpt of the Democratic presidential candidate’s interview on “Face the Nation” the day before it ran in a special edition of “60 Minutes” that aired Oct. 7. The answer to a query about the Biden’s administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war was different from the one that aired on the program.
In speeches and appearances on his favorite conservative media outlets, Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, insists CBS was deceiving the public by editing the answer for the program as a way to put Harris in a more favorable light.
“This is false,” the program said in a statement posted Sunday on X. “’60 Minutes’ gave an excerpt of our interview to ‘Face the Nation’ that used a longer section of her answer than that on ’60 Minutes.’ Same question. Same answer but a different portion of the response.”
The portion used on “60 Minutes” was “more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21 minute long segment.”
Harris’ entire answer appears in a transcript on the CBS News website.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So they did, in fact, by their own admission, edit her response to be “more succinct”.
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Kamala’s full response was included in the transcript, which was released. It is customary to edit all responses that are overly long.
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The fact remains that they did actually edit her response favorably to her, which is what Trump said, but they said that was false and then they went on to prove it true.
They could simply have said, yes, we edited it and here’s why. It’s standard practice and here are some examples of when we’ve done the same for Republican candidates. If, in fact, they could produce such examples.
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I think this cannot be repeated enough, and I try to include it every time I responded to anything even close in context to the circus of chaos and horrors orchestrated by Donald Trump that we are dealing with today.
Donald Trump is a convicted rapist, fraud and felon.
On January 6, 2021, Trump became a traitor.
During Traitor Trump’s lie-filled, Gish Gallup on January 6, 2021, before his MAGA cult mob violently attacked our elected Congress doing its job, his MAGA mob was chanting “fight for Trump,” during the traitors rambling, almost 11,000-word hate rant, over a period of 90 minutes, where he repeated the word “fight” almost 20 times. But only said this word once, early on: ‘peaceful”
Hillary Clinton has never been found guilty, no matter how many times the Republican Party tried to find evidence of guilt for anything, Benghazi and emails, and she is not and never has been a traitor.
President Biden has never been found guilty of anything, no one has even tried, and he is not a traitor.
Vice President Kamala Harris has never been found guilty of anything and she is not a traitor.
Donald Trump is the convicted rapist, fraud, felon, and traitor!
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What does any of that have to do with the issue at hand? If it’s all true, don’t you think Harris should be able to win without CBS’s thumb on the scale? And if she can’t, maybe find someone who can?
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Dienne, why do you think CBS put a thumb in the scale? If Trump had the guts to be interviewed, his replies would have been edited too. Why are you so eager to discredit Harris? You don’t need a new candidate. You have Jill Stein.
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Are you certain his replies would have been edited like that? Do you have evidence? Can you find instances in which CBS has edited Trump’s remarks in his favor? Seems to me all the mainstream media (except Faux, of course) make their bread and butter by painting him in the worst light possible because “DID YOU HEAR WHAT TRUMP JUST SAID?!?!?” draws a lot of eyeballs. I mean, not that Trump needs assistance being cast in a bad light, but the media certainly aren’t prone to editing him for succinctness.
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How did CBS edit Harris’s words to make her look better?
Harris is eloquent.
Trump is an angry, bitter man.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I guess eloquence is in the ear of the listener.
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I heard both answers and there is essentially no difference.
I challenge anyone to listen to both the Face the Nation and 60 Minutes replies and cite how they are different. Because one uses more words to say the same thing?
It’s astonishing that people are more outraged about a meaningless edit for time in a 60 Minutes interview (where Kamala was treated far more harshly than Trump in 2020), than they are about Trump’s blatant lies about Haitian immigrants and trans children.
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dienne77: . . . as is common for them–you know that. Why would they change their protocols after all these years (and probably get pressured from advertisers for use of time)?
The only answer to that, however, is that they know what a jerk Trump is and, if so, then he has already terrorized them like he’s terrorizing Pelosi and other democrats.
But if it weren’t that, it would be something else. And don’t tell me he’s not terrorizing people–he and his minions have been doing that and not being called on it for years.
It’s really consistent with you. Is someone paying you? or are you just a seriously off-the-scales pessimist confrontationist about everything? CBK
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Here were the “hard-hitting” questions 60 minutes posed to Trump in 2020:
“Lesley Stahl: You ready? Everybody ready? So we have the pandemic. On your watch, we’ve had racial strife, we’ve had looting. Why do you want this job? Why do you wanna be president again?” (lol! Instead of having Trump answer for the problems, she asks him why he wants to be president again! Set up for an easy answer!)
Trump gives his self-serving spiel, and Lesley Stahl follows up with the hard-hitting question:
“Lesley Stahl: Let me ask you what you think your– the biggest domestic priority is for you right now.
President Donald Trump: Well–
Lesley Stahl: Or next year.”
President Donald Trump: Ultimately, le– let me– and I– I’ll tell ya, it was happening. We created the greatest economy in the history of our country. And the other side was–
Lesley Stahl: You know that– you know–
President Donald Trump: –coming in-
Lesley Stahl: –that’s not true.
President Donald Trump: It is totally true.
Lesley Stahl: No.
NARRATION: “It isn’t, but President Trump did have an impressive string of economic accomplishments.
President Donald Trump: We had the best stock market price ever and we’re getting close to that price again. The unemployment numbers for African Americans, for Asian Americans, for Hispanic Americans. Virtually every number was the best. And what was happening is things were coming together—
Lesley Stahl: I asked you what’s the priority? I mean, those are all the good things–
President Donald Trump: The priority now–
Lesley Stahl: –what do you have to solve?”
(Compare this to the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala, which downplayed all the economic accomplishments of the last 4 years and never said anything like “But the Democrats did have an IMPRESSIVE STRING OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS — those words were reserved for Trump.
The difference is that when 60 Minutes was insulting Kamala and Walz, they didn’t decide to just blatantly lie like Trump did. Nor did they walk out like Trump did.
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Even for you, Dienne, this is pretty dumb.
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Trump is unfit to serve. He hates democracy; and loves fascists, because he IS a FASCIST to the core.
And…Trump is also STOOOPID to the core. He has no clue about anything important…thus his stupid jabs at dead people, like Arnold Palmer and our deceased soldiers who gave their lives for our freedoms.
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Just replace “Trump” with “Half the country” and you have where Fox has taken us.
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Diane: Here’s something that needs to be communicated again and again to everyone including MAGA:
IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT ONE DOES OR DOES NOT DO–TRUMP WILL COMPLAIN ABOUT IT IF IT IS NOT COMPLEMENTARY TO HIM or if, in some way, he just doesn’t like it–or YOU.
I have people in my family who take this same tack. I just stay away from them. But if I have to, I just NAME IT and follow up by saying:
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. “There you go again,” or some such response.
Defensiveness doesn’t work. Arguing details just draws one into ANOTHER rabbit hole. They need to treat him like the loud drunk at the end of the bar.
The election is nothing less than a question of the difference between sane and insane. CBK
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Addendum: If Trump can get one over on 60 Minutes–the sweet grandfather of excellent news programs (for decades), then we are done like burnt meat.
The United States is half full of the drowsiest most politically dumbed-down people on earth. CBK
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For all his tough and vulgar talk, Trump is a coward that acts like an infantile spoiled brat who is used to getting his way. Bullies are often cowards, and Trump clearly fits the profile. Running to his lawyers and making threats against presumed offenders are how this man-child tantrums.
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AGREE, retired teacher.
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Another addendum to: “Defensiveness doesn’t work. Arguing details just draws one into ANOTHER rabbit hole.”
And he KNOWS that once he says it, true or not, it’s a done deal in a MAGA brain. I have some soap operas that need watching, right after I wash my hair. CBK
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I see that I have missed a lot of fun here the last few days, which I have spent in the hospital. A very serious infection of one leg from the recent floodwaters. But here I am, still breathing (and standing) after having a river of antibiotics poured through me. Love to all.
–Bob S.
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Wishing you a speedy recovery, Bob!
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Dear Bob,
Warm wishes for a complete recovery. We missed you.
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Get well soon, Bob. I miss seeing you here.
M
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I wonder why one commenter here is so concerned about a minor edit by CBS of a Kamala Harris answer in her 60 Minutes interview.
As CBS noted, “When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of (Harris’) answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide-ranging 21-minute-long segment.”
CBS then published the entire transcript of the interview.
Meanwhile, this same commenter made not a SINGLE mention of the fact that Trump purposefully skipped his scheduled 60 Minutes interview because 60 Minutes was going to FACT CHECK him. Also left unmentioned by this commenter is Bret Baeir’s attempt to alter the truth about Trump’s “the enemy within” statement in which he suggested using the military against political opponents, and not for the first time.
Baeir tried to cover his conservatively-biased rear end by saying, a day later, that he had “made a mistake.” Given who Baeir is and his history of misreporting, it appears to be more likely that he “made a mistake” on purpose.
In a comment above, Diane mentioned Jill Stein’s candidacy. Stein still appeals – for whatever weird reason(s) – to a certain segment of voters, some of whom call themselves “principled.” I’d say delusional is a better descriptor.
The NY Times has a piece on Stein the other day, that noted when she considered running again,
“she found resistance in the most intimate constituency: her own family….’For her political activities, she does not have the support of the family,’ one of Ms. Stein’s adult sons said in an interview…‘When she told us she was going to run again back in October 2023, we asked her not to.’…”
As the Tines pointed out, Stein’s “highest elected office was a seat on a town body in Massachusetts more than a decade ago.”
What does a “principled” Stein voter see in this? Why would anyone vote for a person with such a weak political resume’?
Besides the self-described “principled” delusional-ists, Stein is attracting support from others who are NOT so “principled”:
“In Wisconsin, a lawyer who was previously involved in lawsuits seeking to overturn the 2020 election results represented the Green Party. In New Hampshire, a veteran Republican operative submitted signatures for Ms. Stein…Jay Sekulow, who defended Mr. Trump at his first impeachment trial, has worked on behalf of the Green Party in Nevada…Her campaign was recently compelled to disavow an endorsement from the antisemitic white supremacist David Duke, who supported Mr. Trump’s past runs.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/us/politics/jill-stein-harris-trump.html
I’ve tried to figure out what attracts (some) voters to Trump, who is a pathological liar, an overt racist, a misogynist, an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon, AND a seditious traitor. Is it just partisanship? Is it that Trump voters are also racists (clearly LOTS are), and grifters, who are always want something for nothing?
Is it that they are cognitively impaired? How else to explain support for a man who cares only for himself and who incited a violent insurrection to overthrow a free and fair election that he lost?
One thing does seem to be clear, to me at least. There is a sizable chunk of the American electorate that has an ephemerally-tiny familiarity with and commitment to the core values and principles embedded in the U.S. Constitution, which include popular sovereignty, equality, justice, freedoms for all citizens, tolerance, and promoting the general welfare.
Equally as concerning is the fact that one of our two main political parties has become more of a criminal enterprise headed by a narcissistic sociopath who seems to have little if any knowledge of American history and government and who spews a continual stream of fascist rhetoric.
Aristotle wrote that “the character of democracy creates democracy,”and “the better the character, the better the government.”
Conversely James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 10 that “instability, injustice, and confusion introduced in the public councils have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished…”
This election is about whether “We, the People” can sustain the “character of democracy” and create a better government for all, or drown in hate-filled lies and conspiracies and vendettas.
The “principled” vote here should be easily comprehensible to anyone with a nano-ounce of common sense.
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Beautifully said, democracy.
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I have a friend in Australia who says that Trump is evil and did I think there would be unrest if he lost the election. I replied that there would be unrest because Trump lovers KNOW that he will win the election. I then listed reasons why he is evil.
Trump sues CBS over ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Harris. Legal experts call it ‘frivolous and dangerous’
November 1, 2024CNN —
Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Thursday against CBS, demanding $10 billion in damages over the network’s “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. The suit was immediately ridiculed by First Amendment attorneys, who called it “frivolous and dangerous.”
In the complaint filed in US District Court in the Northern District of Texas, Trump’s legal counsel claimed CBS’ “60 Minutes” interview with Harris and the associated programming were “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference” intended to “mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales” of the presidential election in her favor.
The lawsuit also says Trump is seeking for the network to “publicly release the full, unedited transcript of the [interview].”…
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/media/trump-cbs-lawsuit-harris-60-minutes-interview
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Before Trump became president in 2016, he had already been involved in over 3,000 lawsuits.
That’s how he does business.
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