60 Minutes Obeys in Advance

My wife warned me not to watch. As usual, she was right.

Like many of you, I tuned in to watch Norah O’Donnell interview Donald Trump on “60 Minutes.” Over the span of 40 minutes, I sat in disbelief as Trump was asked a series of softball questions with little follow-up.

Having been featured on the broadcast, I knew the editing process would shorten answers, but in this case, it seemed calculated to make an incoherent old man appear clearer and more reasonable. I was certain they had removed all the moments when O’Donnell corrected Trump’s misstatements and lies.

I was wrong. When I read the full transcript of the interview, I realized there had been no pushback, no corrections, no challenging follow-ups. The entire interview had been an open-ended opportunity for Trump to tell rambling lies, only to have them cleaned up into a more polished product.

One example that stood out to me immediately was Trump’s insistence that he was “innocent” of all the criminal charges: “I got indicted, and I was innocent. And here I am, because I was able to beat all of the nonsense that was thrown at me.”

Setting aside the fact that he “beat” the federal cases because of immunity — not because he was found “innocent” — O’Donnell failed to mention that he had been convicted in New York. He did not beat the charges; he was adjudged guilty by a jury.

How could she not point that out to Trump in real time?

The answer appears toward the end of the transcript, when Trump says the quiet part out loud: “‘60 Minutes’ paid me a lotta money.… I think you have a great new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise. She’s great — from what I know.”

Trump is referring to a bogus settlement CBS allegedly entered to pay him $16 million in tribute. The “great new leader” is Bari Weiss, the former conservative New York Times opinion writer who built and sold the right-of-center Free Press to Paramount — CBS’s parent company — for a reported $150 million.

When I read the full transcript of the interview, I realized there had been no pushback, no corrections, no challenging follow-ups.

Trump heaps praise not only on Weiss but also on Paramount’s new owner, David Ellison. The Ellison family is fabulously wealthy and very supportive of Trump. They are building a media empire — reportedly including plans to buy TikTok and a bid to acquire Warner Bros., owner of (among other things) CNN. In the age of Trump, all of this means currying favor to obtain various government approvals.

Meanwhile, O’Donnell is reportedly in the running for a major promotion at CBS — to take over the nightly news broadcast. Weiss, the woman Trump praised, will decide who gets that coveted spot — something that surely wasn’t lost on O’Donnell as she sat down to interview Trump. As he prattled on, Trump gave his approval for the now-tamed “60 Minutes,” calling it “one of the best things to happen” in media “in a long time.”

Of course, none of this exchange made it into the final episode. Only those who watched the unedited version on YouTube or read the transcript know that this critical context was omitted from the broadcast seen by millions.

But that was not the only omission of note.

On four separate occasions, Donald Trump lied about the outcome of the 2020 election:

This was a rigged election.

Then the election was rigged and stolen.

One thing I can tell you — the 2020 election was rigged.

And a lotta people say when it’s rigged, you’re allowed to do it again. It was rigged. And it’s been caught. And you see the same information that everybody else does. And it’s coming out now in spades.

Not once did O’Donnell correct him. None of these lies made it into the final broadcast.

I do not believe that anyone in CBS News management told O’Donnell to go easy on Trump. I am not suggesting that the producers and editors were pressured into making the decisions they did. The problem is that no one had to.

Like most legacy media, CBS News is a steeply declining asset. The people who work there just endured mass layoffs, and more are reportedly on the way.

Without anyone saying a word, everyone involved in this episode knew the risks and the safest path forward. They know, instinctively, how to survive in a declining media organization for one more day — please Trump, Weiss, and Ellison, and everyone’s happy. Piss them off and watch out.

I started Democracy Docket in 2020 to be fiercely independent and proudly pro-democracy. Unlike CBS, it owes nothing to the White House and seeks no favors from them. It has no corporate overlords, no venture capital investors, and no billionaires pulling the strings.

Instead, Democracy Docket relies on you. After watching “60 Minutes,” I wouldn’t have it any other way.