Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called on CBS News to “stand tall” and not settle amid a lawsuit from President Trump over the network’s editing of an interview with former Vice President Harris.
“CBS may be reaching a legal settlement with Trump because he didn’t like how a campaign interview with Kamala was edited. Really? If CBS caves, the belief that we have an independent media protected by the First Amendment is undermined,” Sanders said in a Friday post on X.
“CBS: stand tall. Support the Constitution,” he added.
In late October last year, Trump and his legal team sued CBS News over a “60 Minutes” interview the program did with Harris earlier that month, claiming they edited it to showcase the former Democratic Party presidential nominee in a more positive light.
The president’s team is seeking $10 billion in damages in the lawsuit that was filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas, alleging that “60 Minutes” engaged in “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive and substantial news distortion.”
The spokesperson for the network said the claims of the then-Republican candidate against “60 Minutes” are “false.”
“The Interview was not doctored; and 60 Minutes did not hide any part of the Vice President’s answer to the question at issue,” the spokesperson told The Hill at the time. “60 Minutes fairly presented the Interview to inform the viewing audience, and not to mislead it.”
The president and his supporters alluded to a response Harris gave regarding the war in Gaza that was not featured in the full broadcast, but was written up in the online report. Broadcast networks regularly edit both answers and questions from anchors for time, accuracy and clarity.
ABC News and its anchor George Stephanopoulos settled a defamation lawsuit against Trump in mid-December of 2024, issuing a public apology and agreeing to give $15 million to fund Trump’s future presidential library. The lawsuit was filed after Stephanopoulos in March earlier that year repeatedly said during a segment that Trump was found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. The New York jury found the president to be liable for sexual abuse under the state’s law, but not rape.
Executives at Paramount, the owner of CBS, have reportedly had internal talks about settling the lawsuit with Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported a week ago, citing sources familiar with the matter.
