White House Threatened to Sue CBS if Trump Interview Was Edited
CBS News says it decided from the outset to air anchor Tony Dokoupil’s 13‑minute interview with President Donald Trump in full, after the White House warned it would sue if any of the footage was cut. According to unaired tape described by The New York Times, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Dokoupil at a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan that Trump’s message was, "Make sure you guys don’t cut the tape," adding, "If it’s not out in full, we’ll sue your ass off." CBS told the Times it had already independently chosen to run the interview unedited, while Leavitt said the American people "deserve" full, uncut Trump interviews and noted that CBS did air it in full. The standoff comes after Trump sued CBS in 2024 over an edited "60 Minutes" Kamala Harris interview—a case experts said lacked merit—that ended with parent company Paramount quietly paying Trump $16 million while seeking regulatory approval for a Skydance deal. Together, the threat and prior settlement raise fresh questions about whether the White House is using litigation and corporate leverage to influence how major outlets edit presidential interviews.
📌 Key Facts
- After Dokoupil’s 13‑minute interview with Trump at a Ford plant in Dearborn, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told CBS staff the president said that if the interview was not aired in full, 'we’ll sue your ass off.'
- CBS said in a statement it had independently decided from the moment it booked the interview to air it 'unedited and in its entirety.'
- Trump previously sued CBS in 2024 over editing a '60 Minutes' interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris; Paramount paid him a $16 million settlement without admitting fault while pursuing a merger with Skydance.
📊 Relevant Data
In the 2024 '60 Minutes' interview with Kamala Harris, CBS edited her response to a question about the Biden administration's handling of the Israel-Hamas war; the aired version was a concise answer, while the full unedited response was longer and more circuitous, which Trump claimed constituted deceptive editing to make Harris appear more articulate.
The FCC just published CBS' raw Kamala Harris '60 Minutes' interview — CNN
Editing television news interviews for brevity, clarity, and time constraints is a standard journalistic practice, provided it does not alter the meaning or context of the statements, as outlined in ethical guidelines from organizations like The New York Times, which emphasize transparency and accuracy in editing processes.
Ethical Journalism Handbook - The New York Times — The New York Times
Dearborn, Michigan, has a population where 54.5% identify as of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry as of 2023, making Arab Americans the majority group, compared to the national U.S. average of about 1.1% for Arab ancestry.
Arab Americans now a majority in Dearborn, new census data shows — Detroit Free Press
Historical Arab immigration to Dearborn, Michigan, was driven by economic opportunities in the auto industry starting in the early 20th century, with later waves from the 1960s onward due to conflicts such as the Lebanese Civil War, Gulf Wars, Yemeni Civil War, and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, facilitated by U.S. policies like the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 enabling family reunification and refugee admissions.
A brief history of Dearborn, Michigan – the first Arab-American majority city in the US — The Conversation
📰 Source Timeline (1)
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