Trump sues CBS for $10bn over Kamala Harris editing scandal

Network’s actions amounted to voter interference, claim lawyers for former president

Donald Trump is suing CBS News for $10 billion over claims the network doctored an interview with Kamala Harris to make her appear more coherent.
The network was accused of bias with Trump and his supporters claiming it had deliberately edited a “word salad”answer given by the vice-president during a 60 Minutes interview.
In a preview aired a day before the interview, Ms Harris was seen giving a rambling response to a question about Israel, but in the actual interview the following day her answer to the same question was significantly shorter.
The network later admitted it had clipped the vice-president’s answer to make it “more succinct”, but rejected Trump’s claim that its editing was “deceitful”.
The president is now suing CBS for billions in damages, claiming that its actions amounted to “voter interference” and were an “attempt to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party” in the election.
Trump’s lawyers filed the lawsuit on Thursday in response to what they called “CBS’s partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public”.
“President Trump brings this action to redress the immense harm caused to him, to his campaign, and to tens of millions of citizens in Texas and across America by CBS’s deceptive broadcasting conduct,” the lawsuit, obtained by Fox News Digital, said.
It comes after Trump’s representatives wrote to CBS News urging the network to release the full transcript of the interview with Ms Harris. They have also asked CBS to hold onto all records of the interview pending a potential legal fight.
CBS refused to release the transcript, citing its First Amendment rights, adding that the interview was not “doctored” and that the programme “did not hide any part of the vice-president’s answer to the question at issue”.
In the preview clip, Ms Harris’s answer was: “The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region,”
But when the interview aired on Monday’s show, Ms Harris appeared to give a more focused response: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
The vice-president’s response to host Bill Whittaker’s question was mocked by Republicans at the time, with Trump later calling the editing incident “the single biggest scandal in broadcast history”.
“To paper over Kamala’s ‘word salad’ weakness, CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgement in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news,” the lawsuit read.
Trump’s lawyers accused the network of “distorting the interview” to boost “their preferred candidate”.
The lawsuit said CBS was “responsible for accurately representing the truth of events, not distorting an interview to try and falsely make their preferred candidate appear coherent and decisive, which Kamala most certainly is not”.
“Due to CBS’ actions, the public could not distinguish which Kamala they saw in the Interview: the candidate or the actual puppet of a behind-the-scenes editor,” the lawsuit continued, adding that the question on the war in Gaza “was of the utmost public significance”.
In addition to the $10 billion sum, Trump is demanding a jury trial.
A CBS News spokesman said: “Former President Trump’s repeated claims 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.
“60 Minutes fairly presented the interview to inform the viewing audience, and not to mislead it. The lawsuit Trump has brought today against CBS is completely without merit and we will vigorously defend against it.”