The Media Research Center made a needlessly huge deal over right-wing demands that CBS release a transcript of the interview Kamala Harris did last fall with “60 Minutes” last October. Tim Graham got the conspiracy ball rolling (with help from the MRC’s Trump Regime Media buddies at Fox News) in an Oct. 9 post:
Brian Flood and David Rutz at FoxNews.com reported that CBS aired two different answers to the same question on Israel in its 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. First they aired a word-salad answer on Sunday’s Face the Nation. But when the interview aired on Monday night, the answer was entirely different.
[…]Donald Trump’s campaign demanded CBS release a full transcript of the interview. Press aide Karoline Leavitt: “Why did 60 Minutes choose not to air Kamala’s full word salad, and what else did they choose not to air? The American people deserve the full, unedited transcript from Kamala’s sit-down interview. We call upon 60 Minutes and CBS to release it. What do they, and Kamala, have to hide?”
Jeffrey Lord advanced the right-wing narrative in his Oct. 12 column: “This one would revolve around a 60 Minutes interview with Harris. The bottom line of which is a released transcript of the interview that differed from the tape of the interview, which is to say, the tape was apparently edited to save Harris from another of her now trademark word salads.” He went on to whine that both CBS and the New York Times “both are effectively run by staffs of virulent left-wingers who have zero interest in straight news and every interest in slanting whatever news story of the moment is slanted in a far left direction,” urther huffing that “they are openly devoted to spreading Left-wing propaganda.” Lord doesn’t need any proof of that, of course.
Graham helped his boss pile on in an Oct. 22 post:
MRC founder and president Brent Bozell appeared on Monday night on the Fox Business program Evening Edit to discuss CBS refusing to release a transcript of its deceptively edited Kamala Harris interview in a Monday night 60 Minutes election special.
First, the CBS Sunday interview show Face The Nation aired a word-salad answer from Kamala on Israel. Then the Monday night special aired a much briefer, more coherent answer.
Fox host Liz McDonald asked “Who was it edited for? Was it edited for the viewer, or Kamala? And how about instead of releasing statements, why won’t they release the full transcript and footage?”
Bozell agreed: “So what’s going on behind the scenes at CBS? Who made the decision to edit it one way and then re-edit it another way after a backlash? Was it the staff that did it? Did the Kamala Harris campaign call them and say ‘that’s not what we want. We want you to air another part.’ We don’t know. Release the transcript.”
The MRC even reprinted an Oct. 22 post by Craig Bannister from its CNSNews.com propaganda mill hyping a poll claiming that that “Nine in ten voters say CBS should release the full transcript of its October 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris which the network edited before airing in an apparent attempt to present Harris’s comments in an unrealistically favorable manner.”
Graham returned in a nitpicking Oct. 24 post:
CNN’s Brian Stelter touted that CBS lawyers sent a “blunt letter” on Wednesday to Trump’s legal counsel Edward Paltzik, refusing to bend to public demands for the release of a full transcript of its sneakily edited Kamala Harris interview with Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes.
CBS News senior vice president for legal affairs Gayle Sproul insisted the First Amendment “fiercely protects” their work on 60 Minutes. Sure, but that included Dan Rather’s freedom to use phony documents in an attempt to smear George W. Bush in 2004. Today it applies to CBS deciding to lead its evening newscast with anonymously sourced smears of Donald Trump.
“For that reason,” Sproul argued, Trump has no legal basis to sue, “and I note that you do not identify one,” Sproul wrote. “Nor is there any legal basis for your demand that we provide you with the unedited transcript of the interview, which we decline to do.”
In a two-page response obtained by CNN, Sproul wrote that Paltzik’s letter was “based on the faulty premise that 60 Minutes distorted its interview” with Harris “in order to present her in a positive light.” Banish the thought!
Gabriela Pariseau wrote a press release for her boss in an Oct. 31 post:
MRC President Brent Bozell has put CBS News on notice in a letter calling for the outlet to confirm whether or not it coordinated with Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign when it edited her60 Minutes interview.
On Oct. 6, CBS News’s Face the Nation previewed a 60 Minutes interview with Harris during which she was asked about whether Israel is conducting its war the way she wants it to. As recounted by Bozell, her “rambling response to a direct question” showed in the Face the Nation snippet received an avalanche of criticism on social media only to be edited out of the 60 Minutes interview and replaced with a “different, more cogent answer to the same question.” MRC’s president went on to urge CBS to attempt to repair the trust it broke with the American people, writing: “There is only one way for CBS to prove its innocence, and that is through simple transparency.”
Graham whined in a Nov. 1 post:
The liberal papers and TV networks are not rushing to cover Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against CBS for its dishonest clip job of their Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes. They most likely consider it a stunt like riding in a garbage truck, as Trump trying to refocus attention on CBS sketchily refusing to release a full transcript.
In his “Reliable Sources” newsletter on Friday, Brian Stelter noted (without mentioning CBS) that Harris did a “pull-aside” interview with NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor, seen above. “NBC immediately posted the full transcript.” Why can’t CBS do the same?
Perhaps because it has done nothing wrong — something Graham and the MRC are too biased to consider.
Curtis Houck cheered how the full force of the federal government under Trump would be taking over this partisan attack in a Feb. 3 post under the snotty headline “Give It Up, Eyeball Network”:
By appearing Monday on the Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr showed he’s not messing around by reminding CBS News that Monday was deadline day for them to turn over the full transcript of its October 2024 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
Monday could shape out to be quite the headache for CBS as the network was also barreling towards a possible settlement with former President Trump over a lawsuit he filed over said Harris lovefest in which answers were rearranged to make her more cogent.
Houck surprisingly admitted that Trump’s lawsuit is a partisan cash grab:
As for the Trump lawsuit, The New York Times reported Thursday that “many executives at CBS’s parent company, Paramount, believe that settling the lawsuit would increase the odds that the Trump administration does not block or delay their planned multibillion-dollar merger with….Skydance, an entertainment company backed by the billionaire Larry Ellison and run by his son David.”
The Times added a settlement — which ABC agreed to with Trump over March 10, 2024 comments made by George Stephanopoulos — “could also cause an uproar within CBS News” that settling would be “tantamount to a politician’s standard-issue gripes about a news organization’s editorial judgment.”
Houck seems oddly unbothered that Trump is abusing the power of the presidency to shake down his perceived enemies.
How did all this work out? That’s coming soon.