Donald Trump is suing CBS News for $10 billion, alleging that the network deceptively edited an interview with his rival Kamala Harris to unlawfully influence the 2024 presidential election.
The lawsuit, filed in Texas, accuses CBS of “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to … confuse, deceive, and mislead the public” and “attempt to tip the scales” in favor of the Democratic nominee.
His legal team filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Amarillo, where the case is expected to land in front of a judge he appointed. Any appeal of a decision in the case would go to a Louisiana-based appellate court that is dominated by conservative judges that have routinely sided in Republican-backed legal challenges.
A case from Trump — who lives in Florida, and who is suing a New York-based company incorporated in Delaware — is likely to be handed to conservative District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who Trump nominated to the bench. Judge Kacsmaryk notably reinstated Trump’s so-called “remain in Mexico” program and ruled to strip government approval of a widely used abortion drug. Both decisions were struck down by the Supreme Court.
Trump has demanded a jury trial and wants to be awarded $10 billion in damages.
The lawsuit spends several paragraphs on political attacks, calling President Joe Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign “an unprecedented and anti-democratic political coup” and accusing CBS and other media outlets of going “into overdrive to get Kamala elected.” The document only references Harris by her first name.
Trump’s attorneys claim news outlets “have tried to falsely recast her as the candidate of ‘joy,’ whitewashed her lengthy record of policy failures, and painted over her repeated, disqualifying gaffes,” including “word salad” and “jumbles of exceptionally incoherent speech that have drawn disapproval even from dyed-in-the-wool Democratic commentators.
Thursday’s long-shot claims, filed just six days before Election Day, follow Trump’s obsessive attacks baselessly alleging that the network did something “illegal” and doctored her responses.
He also has repeatedly threatened to revoke CBS’s broadcast license, along with other television networks that have aired critical coverage of his administration and campaign.
Trump has previously launched unsuccessful lawsuits against CNN and The New York Times. A judge this year determined that the former president owes the newspaper and three reporters nearly $400,000 for their legal fees after his failed lawsuit against them.
The Republican presidential nominee also backed out of a chance to appear on 60 Minutes himself. Anchor Scott Pelley told viewers during the Harris broadcast that Trump’s campaign “complained that we would fact-check the interview.”
“We fact-check every story,” Pelley said.
The network has since refuted Trump’s “false” accusations, and an attorney for the network said there is “no legal basis” for a legal challenge after a legal threat from Trump’s team to turn over unedited transcripts.
At issue is how 60 Minutes aired Harris’s answers to a question from host Bill Whitaker about whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is listening to the US.
A preview of the interview that aired on CBS’s Face the Nation shows her responding by defending America’s influence, while the 60 Minutes broadcast includes an answer that “we are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
CBS has said that the network aired the entirety of her answer; a first half aired on the Sunday program and the second half aired on Monday’s broadcast as two parts of the same answer to the same question.
“Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response,” the network said in a statement earlier this month.
“When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point,” the statement said. “The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21-minute-long segment.”