Former President Donald Trump has sued CBS News, alleging that the network’s “misleading” editing of a recent 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris misled the public and unfairly disadvantaged them.
In a statement released Thursday, CBS News called the former president’s claims “completely without merit” and said the network intends to vigorously defend itself against the lawsuit.
The trial, which comes just days before the two candidates face off in the 2024 presidential election, focuses on two excerpts from an October interview 60 Minutes conducted with Harris. One of the clips was edited to include a longer section of his response to a question about the Middle East conflict. Trump’s lawsuit claims the editorial decision was intentionally intended to help his opponent and mislead the public, which CBS News disputed.
“To mask Kamala’s weakness in ‘word salad,’ CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line between exercising judgment in reporting and misleading and deceptive manipulation of the news,” says the trial. The suit says the former president is seeking a jury trial and at least $10 billion in damages.
“Former President Trump’s repeated claims against 60 Minutes are false,” network statement said. “The interview was not rigged.”
Trump’s legal complaint was filed Thursday in federal court in the Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas, a remote location where the only judge is a Trump appointee in 2019. Republican-led states and special interest groups have referred at least 14 politically sensitive cases to this court since January 2021, according to the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US.
The lawsuit does not claim that Trump was defamed by the network, said Geoffrey R. Stone, a First Amendment scholar and law professor at the University of Chicago who reviewed the complaint. Instead, the suit attempts a novel use of a Texas law intended to prevent advertisers from misleading the public about a product being sold – the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Consumer Protection Act.
Stone called it “misapplication” of the law.
“This law is about sales: A seller can be held liable if they represent that a product has certain positive effects when they know that is not the case,” Stone said. “But CBS doesn’t advertise here.”
Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor and constitutional law expert, said he was intrigued by Trump’s claims and called the case “an outrageous violation of the principles of the First Amendment.”
“This is a complaint so ill-founded that it is on the verge of being sanctioned as frivolous,” Feldman said.
The former president has expressed his displeasure with the interview on the campaign trail for weeks.
“Millions of Americans, including residents of Texas and this District, were confused and misled by the two falsified versions of the interview,” the suit claims.
In an earlier statement released by 60 Minutes, the network explained that the two clips were edited differently because one segment, which appeared on “Face the Nation,” allowed more time to accommodate a longer section of Harris’ response .
“Same question. Same answer. But different part of the answer,” said Oct. 20. 60 Minutes statement said. “When we edit an interview, whether it’s a politician, an athlete or a movie star, we strive to be clear, precise and to the point. The part of his answer in 60 Minutes was more succinct, leaving time for other topics within a wide range of 21 minutes.”
Trump had been invited to sit for his own interview on 60 Minutes, but denied.
The former president has previously filed several lawsuits against media organizations, including a March defamation case against ABC News following a question asked by anchor George Stephanopoulos during an interview.
He has already lost libel cases against CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
