Trump amends CBS '60 Minutes' lawsuit and demands $20 billion

Meg James, Los Angeles Times on Feb 8, 2025

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President Donald Trump has amended his lawsuit against CBS, demanding $20 billion and again claiming the network deceptively edited a "60 Minutes" interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris in an effort to prop up her election chances.

In the new court filing late Friday, Trump demanded twice the amount in damages than he originally requested. The updated complaint included CBS' parent company, Paramount Global, as a defendant and added Republican U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, Trump's former doctor, as an additional plaintiff because he lives in Texas, where the case was filed.

Trump's amended filing seeks to steer the case away from First Amendment grounds. Instead, Trump asserts the case should not hinge on free speech arguments because CBS allegedly had business motivations to make Harris appear stronger.

CBS declined to comment Saturday. The network has repeatedly denied that it deceptively manipulated the Harris interview.

The amended complaint came two days after the Federal Communications Commission took the unusual step of releasing raw transcripts and the unedited video of the ''60 Minutes" interview sessions with Harris. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, appointed by Trump, this week opened a separate inquiry into alleged news distortion at CBS, following a complaint filed last fall by the conservative nonprofit Center for American Rights.

The unedited interview footage confirmed CBS' account that Harris had been quoted accurately.

CBS News had invited Harris and Trump to sit down with "60 Minutes," but after agreeing to an interview Trump backed out. The network went forward with the Harris interview, conducted by CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker, in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign.

The controversy over the edits surfaced after Trump supporters zeroed in on different answers Harris gave in response to a question about Israel.

In a clip of the interview broadcast on "Face the Nation," Harris gave a wordy response.

When the interview ran on "60 Minutes," her answer was more forceful and succinct.

"Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response," CBS said last fall. "When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point."

CBS defended the edits again this week amid the newly opened FCC inquiry.

"In making these edits, '60 Minutes' is always guided by the truth and what we believe will be most informative to the viewing public, all while working within the constraints of broadcast television," the network said Wednesday.

But, in the updated lawsuit, Trump's team accused Harris of being a weak candidate, prone to "uttering 'word salads' —i.e., jumbles of exceptionally incoherent speech."

CBS "deceptively manipulated the interview in a manner calculated to make Harris appear coherent and decisive, and thus the product more commercially appealing to defendants' audience," the Trump lawsuit said.

CBS lawyers had asked the judge in December to dismiss the Trump case or move it to New York. CBS is based in New York, and the show was edited in New York. Trump was a resident of Florida when the case was filed.

But Trump filed the suit in Amarillo, Texas, where it is being heard by a Trump-appointed judge. By adding Jackson, who lives in Texas, as a plaintiff, the Trump team argued the congressman was harmed by the "60 Minutes" interview and that the case should remain in Texas.

The controversy has clouded Paramount Global Chairwoman Shari Redstone's plans to sell Paramount, and her family's holding company, to David Ellison and his Skydance Media. The two sides had been pushing to get that $8-billion merger wrapped up by April.

Redstone and her family would walk away with about $1.75 billion.

Redstone has urged her team to settle the suit with Trump, according to knowledgeable people who were not authorized to comment publicly. The mogul wants to complete the merger. Separately, she has previously expressed dismay with "60 Minutes" over a recent story on Gaza.

Inside the company, the settlement talks have been divisive.

Journalists have pushed back, calling on Paramount's leaders to stand tall and defend CBS News' First Amendment freedoms. Paramount officials and Trump's team have had preliminary settlement talks, the knowledgeable people said.

The New York Post reported that Trump's negotiation team, which includes the president's son Donald Trump Jr., is looking to extract as much as $100 million in a settlement with Paramount. That's about six times more than Walt Disney Co. agreed to pay in December to settle a defamation lawsuit over statements by ABC News anchor George Stephanoupolos. The anchor inaccurately said that Trump had been found liable in a civil case for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse.

The Paramount-Skydance merger needs the approval of the FCC's Carr because the company's sale involves the transfer of CBS stations' broadcast licenses to the Ellison family.

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