FCC Pulls a '60 Minutes' on '60 Minutes'

Debra Saunders on Feb 7, 2025

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission pulled a "60 Minutes" on "60 Minutes."

In a complaint filed against CBS, the FCC charged that "60 Minutes" and "Face the Nation" last year engaged in "news distortion" that involves "significant and substantial news alteration made in the middle of a heated presidential campaign." The FCC released transcripts of unedited CBS interviews with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

I should note, the FCC move followed Trump's lawsuits against CBS News.

President Donald Trump declined to appear on "60 Minutes" in 2024. But in 2020, he sat down with the show's Lesley Stahl, who began asking him if he was ready for "tough questions."

Forget tough. The "60 Minutes" Harris interview, which aired in October, skipped the obvious question. The show's Bill Whitaker failed to ask Harris about then-President Joe Biden's declining mental faculties.

The FCC complaint stems from the editing by CBS's signature newsmagazine of remarks made by Harris, then the Democratic nominee for president. The edits made Harris appear more articulate and focused in the heat of the 2024 presidential campaign, even as critics were ridiculing her notorious "word salads."

Truth be told, most of the changes made by the show were minor and involved style choices. None of them altered her overall message, although they were, as the brief noted, "two completely different answers."

Problem is, a show once known for hard-hitting journalism has been exposed for selecting a quote by the Democratic nominee for president that made her sound better, not worse. It was the opposite of the 2020 Trump interview.

Americans already know "60 Minutes" leans left and that its on-air interviews are more likely to toss softball questions at Democrats and throw curveballs at Republicans -- unless the Republican (Liz Cheney) is trashing Trump.

The cat came out of the bag last year when CBS aired two different Harris responses to Whitaker's remark, "But it seems that (Israeli) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not listening." It was Whitaker's way of saying that Bibi was not on board with then-President Joe Biden's push for a ceasefire.

In the clip aired in October on "Face the Nation," Harris responded, "Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by the result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region."

That response presented Harris delivering a long, jargon-laden answer that didn't say very much.

The second clip, which aired on "60 Minutes," presented most of the rest of the quote, and was more to the point: "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."

To tell the truth, I don't see this as an outrageous case of news distortion, especially as the second clip is more concise -- and you want concise in a 21-minute segment.

The problem is the history here. "60 Minutes" touts its transparency. But CBS did not release an unedited transcript of the Harris interview -- until the FCC did it.

"CBS's conduct is hard to explain," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told Fox News Digital. "On the one hand, CBS immediately released the unredacted transcript of a recent interview with Vice President (JD) Vance. Yet for months they refused to release the one with Vice President Harris."

Here's the worst part: They can't help themselves. They just handed their critics at the FCC a gotcha moment. Turnabout is fair play.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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