By In a dramatic legal move, former President Donald Trump filed a huge lawsuit against CBS News, alleging the network engaged in “deceptive conduct” intended to interfere with the 2024 presidential election. The lawsuit, writes Fox News, accuses CBS of distorting an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris on its program “60 Minutes,” claiming the edits were calculated to favor the Democratic Party.
According to Trump’s attorneys, the lawsuit addresses CBS’s “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference.” They argue that the broadcast edits aimed to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party” and presented a misleading representation of Harris’s stance on significant policy issues. The suit cites a specific exchange between Harris and “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker, where Harris responded to questions about U.S.-Israel relations. CBS initially aired a lengthy answer from Harris on “Face the Nation” but later featured a condensed, more direct response in the prime-time election special, sparking criticism from conservative circles.
“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 states, explained Fox News.
The lawsuit comes after Trump’s attorneys wrote letters to CBS News demanding the network release the full transcript of the “60 Minutes” interview with Harris after it aired two different answers to the same question. Trump attorneys asked CBS to preserve all documents and communications related to the interview pending a potential legal battle.
CBS News refused to release the full transcript, citing the First Amendment, and rejected the assertion that it had “doctored” the Harris interview to mislead the American people. The network insisted that “the interview was not doctored” and that the program “did not hide any part of the vice president’s answer to the question at issue.”
The lawsuit filed Thursday specifically references the exchange Harris had with “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker. In a preview clip that aired on “Face the Nation,” Harris was asked why it seemed like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the U.S.
Remember Kamala’s word salad answer about Israel on 60 Minutes? It’s gone.
This is what many Americans will now see. pic.twitter.com/H4w7btDv6x
— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 8, 2024
Trump’s legal team is seeking a jury trial and at least $10 billion in damages, plus additional costs, citing CBS’s “ongoing false, misleading, and deceptive acts.” CBS News has yet to respond publicly to the lawsuit.
Media bias has come into new focus this election year. Recently Jeff Bezos made waves by refusing to allow The Washington Post, which he owns, to endorse anyone for president, sparking outrage in the newsroom and costing the newspaper hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
“Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose,” Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, wrote.
He added: “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say: ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
A Media Research Center study has found that major networks ABC, CBS, and NBC are delivering the most imbalanced election coverage in history. The analysis shows that while 78 percent of Kamala Harris’s coverage has been positive, 85 percent of coverage surrounding Donald Trump has been negative.
The study reviewed over 600 news segments since July, revealing a significant gap: networks dedicated 31 percent of Trump’s coverage to controversies compared to only 5 percent of Kamala Harris’s coverage on critical issues. This disparity marks an even wider coverage gap than in the 2016 and 2020 elections, with networks offering double the airtime to Trump post-September debate—predominantly with a negative slant.
These findings come as public trust in the media declines, with a recent Gallup poll indicating that 36 percent of Americans have “no trust at all” in the media.
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