CBS, 60 Minutes: How Dare Trump Notice We Hid Kamala's Word Salad?

News organizations make mistakes, as we all do. When that happens, the 
best way to restore credibility is to admit error, apologize for it, and 
endeavor not to repeat the actions that might have damaged the brand. Bret 
Baier did this in miniature by acknowledging that Kamala Harris was 
correct in her criticism that Fox News played the wrong clip of Donald 
Trump during their interview and publicly apologizing to Harris for the 
mistake.

CBS News chose ... another path.

Two weeks ago, 60 Minutes aired a recorded and edited interview with 
Kamala Harris, which they had heavily promoted over the preceding weekend. 
In Twitter/X ads, CBS played a clip of Harris answering a question from 
Bill Whitaker on Israel that was all but incomprehensible. But when the 
interview aired, 60 Minutes replaced that answer with another one from 
Harris, without any explanation for the switch:

MAZE
@mazemoore
·
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Remember Kamala’s word salad answer about Israel on 60 Minutes? It’s gone.

This is what many Americans will now see.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1843664856446316758

Bear in mind that CBS and 60 Minutes thought that first answer was 
newsworthy enough to include in its advertising. However, it created all 
sorts of ridicule over Harris' lack of substance in the answer, along with 
her tremulous voice at the start of the response. Sometime between 
deciding that was a highlight and the air date, someone at either 60 
Minutes or CBS News bowdlerized Harris' answer to remove the part that 
made her look like an idiot and replaced it with something that sounded 
more responsive to Whitaker's question.

After two weeks of criticism -- during which CBS News has refused to 
release the transcript of the full interview -- the network has finally 
published a response from 60 Minutes. Did they choose the Baier path of 
transparency? Not exactly; they blamed Donald Trump for noticing their 
three-card Monty.

No, really:

Former President Donald Trump is accusing 60 Minutes of deceitful editing 
of our Oct. 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is false.

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. 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 her answer on 60 Minutes 
was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 
21-minute-long segment.

Remember, Mr. Trump pulled out of his interview with 60 Minutes and the 
vice president participated.

So ... Trump refused to do an interview, and 60 Minutes got revenge by 
editing his opponent's responses to make her sound (marginally) smarter? 
Is that how journalism works? Because that's how this reads.

On the same topic of journalism, it's not the media outlet's job to make a 
candidate "more succinct." That's the job of the candidate. The job of the 
news agency is to report on what the candidate said, and in interviews to 
air the entire response. Also, why would time be an issue, when 60 Minutes 
runs for an hour? Did Harris speak for longer than that? Almost certainly 
not, but even if so, CBS could have just given it more air time. But if 
the interview needed to be edited down for time, then 60 Minutes should 
have removed question/answer pairs rather than edit Harris' responses to 
make her sound "more succinct."

That's what campaigns do. Not news agencies. Unless the news agency has 
decided to become part of the campaign. 

With 60 Minutes now acknowledging that they change answers on recorded 
interviews to suit their own motives, the last part of the statement is a 
hilarious exercise in total non-self-awareness:

Our long-standing invitation to former President Trump remains open. If he 
would like to discuss the issues facing the nation and the Harris 
interview, we would be happy to have him on 60 Minutes.

Trump refused to appear on 60 Minutes because Leslie Stahl sandbagged him 
with false information the last time he appeared. He demanded an apology 
for that first, which 60 Minutes refused to offer. Why would any 
Republican appear on 60 Minutes for a prerecorded interview now, after 
this admission of political hackery? That question is especially pertinent 
after CBS News cut several minutes out of Speaker Mike Johnson's interview 
a few days later to remove the context of his answer on election 
integrity:

Speaker Mike Johnson
·
Oct 14, 2024
@SpeakerJohnson
·
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CBS has been under fire for selectively editing their interviews to 
PROMOTE Democrats and UNDERMINE Republicans. 

Yesterday, they chose to cut FIVE important minutes out of my nearly 15 
minute interview. 

You can be the judge as to why. 

Stand by for the receipts.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1846029803595383249

Speaker Mike Johnson
@SpeakerJohnson
·
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I recently traveled to NC and victims of Hurricane Helene told me nearly 
two weeks after landfall, the Biden-Harris Administration had STILL not 
provided them with all the resources they desperately needed.

But CBS selectively edited OUT ENTIRELY this first-hand perspective.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1846029805050810391

CBS hasn't just put a thumb on the partisan scale. They're putting their 
elbow on it. 

Finally, the refusal to release the transcript of the full and unedited 
interview looms large over this response from CBS News and 60 Minutes. 
Even if one buys the notion that they swapped Harris' answer out in the 
interest of time, why not release the full and unedited remarks in text 
form? There's no issue with air time or the need to be "succinct." That 
would allow people to read Harris' full responses for themselves to judge 
whether 60 Minutes edited the interview fairly.

Which is why we will never see the transcript, at least not under current 
ownership. Until we do, CBS and 60 Minutes has no credibility whatsoever, 
and should be considered an arm of the Democrat Party. 


-- 
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem.  It has none.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.  
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden 
fiasco, President Trump.  

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed 
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.