Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, filed a complaint to the newly appointed CBS News ombudsman on Wednesday over the way that 60 Minutes edited its recent interview with Donald Trump.
Raskin’s letter to the ombudsman, Kenneth Weinstein, also seeks information on Trump’s influence over the network in the aftermath of the administration’s approval of the Skydance-Paramount merger went down.
Raskin wrote in his letter, “President Trump increasingly appears to be exercising direct control over CBS’s editorial decisions, destroying CBS’s ‘journalistic integrity’ while violating its right to be free from governmental coercion and manipulation.”
As it sought the FCC’s green light, the David Ellison-run company agreed to install an ombudsman to take complaints over news division coverage.
The congressman keyed in on aspects of the Trump’s 60 Minutes sit down with Norah O’Donnell. The interview lasted about 90 minutes, but only 28 minutes were broadcast. CBS posted a complete transcript and an extended, 73-minute version of the interview online.
That publication of the full transcript has allowed for a new level of scrutiny over what was left in the broadcast portion and what was left out.
Raskin wrote, “When interviewer Norah O’Donnell asked about the appearance of corruption behind President Trump’s pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao—who had pleaded guilty to money laundering and whose company struck a $2 billion deal with the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture—President Trump got defensive: ‘I can’t say, because—I can’t say— I’m not concerned. I don’t—I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it,’ he said. CBS omitted that entire exchange about potential conflicts of interest from both video versions, depriving the public of critical information about President Trump’s obvious pay-to-play pardon scheme and his obvious discomfort.”
Raskin also noted that the broadcast and online video omitted a portion of the interview where Trump “boasts about his shakedown of the network.”
Trump said, “Actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you…. 60 Minutes was forced to pay me—a lot of money because they took [Vice President Harris’s] answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing.”
In advance of the Skydance-Paramount merger getting the FCC’s greenlight, Paramount’s previous regime agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit over the way that the newsmagazine edited an interview with Kamala Harris just weeks before last year’s presidential election. Although many legal experts and the network itself deemed the lawsuit baseless, it was seen as impediment to securing approval of the merger deal.
A Paramount spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. The Hill first reported on Raskin’s letter.
Raskin’s complaint is turning the tables a bit, as it was expected that the Paramount-appointed ombudsman would field complaints mainly from the right, not the left. In his letter, Raskin raised issues of how Weinstein would evaluate complaints.
Weinstein is the former president and CEO of the Hudson Institute, a right-leaning D.C. think tank. “Your role differs fundamentally from traditional news ombudsmen, as you report directly to Paramount executives rather than advocating for the public,” Raskin wrote. Among other things, he is asking Weinstein for a “written explanation of the editorial standards you apply in reviewing complaints, including how you define improper bias versus legitimate editorial judgment, and whether allowing interview subjects to direct editorial decisions violates CBS News standards.”
