He took us for $16 million. The least he can do is give us an interview.
That’s probably not how it went down in the CBS boardroom, but it’s no doubt what the purveyors of “60 Minutes” were thinking. Indeed, the network practically said as much on Friday when it announced the biggest of all “gets.”
“This is Mr. Trump’s first interview with 60 Minutes in five years — and his first since he sued and then settled with CBS parent company Paramount over a 2024 interview with then Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The settlement did not include an apology.”
Notice how the network didn’t mention the price tag of that settlement. I wonder why. It seems newsworthy, no? And get a load of that last sentence: “The settlement did not include an apology.”
No, they didn’t issue a formal apology for having interfered in the 2024 presidential election by deceptively editing their interview with a dim-witted and ill-prepared Kamala Harris. But they didn’t need to. They apologized 16 million times.
When it comes to their word and their integrity, the Big Three news networks would have us believe that they’re as ballsy as Tony Montana. In reality, though, they’re as craven as Groucho Marx: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others.”
But there’s a new sheriff in town at CBS News, and her name isn’t Billy Ray Valentine. It’s Bari Weiss.
Weiss is the classically liberal champion of free speech who left the lowly New York Times in disgust five years ago to found Common Sense, which became The Free Press. Then, last month, she sold her enterprise to CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for $150 million while at the same time negotiating an impressive twofer. As our Nate Jackson noted last month, “The Free Press will continue to operate, but as part of the deal, she has taken the helm as editor-in-chief of CBS News.”
That’s the backstory behind yesterday evening’s “60 Minutes” interview with Donald Trump — an interview that lasted more than an hour but was edited down to 28 minutes by CBS News.
Asked by host Norah O’Donnell about the government shutdown, Trump affixed the blame right where it belongs — with Senate Democrats: “[Chuck] Schumer is a basket case,” he said. “He’s become a kamikaze pilot.”
When asked by O’Donnell why he hasn’t done more to end the shutdown, Trump fired back: “I’m not gonna do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way. There’s something wrong with these people.”
True to CBS form, O’Donnell also asked a context-free question after displaying some context-free footage: “More recently,” she began, “Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows.”
To which Trump responded, “Um hum.”
She then asked, “Have some of these raids gone too far?”
Trump, though, was in a counterpunching mood: “No,” he replied, “I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama.” Which, of course, is absolutely true. We’re either a nation of laws, or we aren’t. And everyone being snatched up by ICE has come into our country illegally.
O’Donnell also asked Trump about his decision last week to restart our testing of nuclear weapons. “We’re the only country that doesn’t test,” he said, “and I don’t wanna be the only country that doesn’t test.”
As it turns out, Trump made that announcement just prior to his summit meeting with Communist China’s Xi Jinping — which would explain why the commie dictator looked like he’d just swallowed a fishbone.
In the end, what was perhaps most remarkable about the interview was how unremarkable it was in terms of fireworks. It was pure Donald Trump, yes, but CBS seemed to be on generally decent behavior.
Call it The Bari Weiss Effect.
Many years ago, when I saw the “blue ocean” market share being gobbled up by Fox News on the Right, while all the other networks — CBS, NBC, and ABC, and CNN, MSNBC, and PBS — were fighting each other for market share in the chum-filled red ocean on the Left, I wondered: When would one of these networks respond to the citizenry, and to business and market realities, and shift their news more toward the middle?
Time will tell, but maybe CBS is making a subtle move in that direction.
