President Trump bragged about the $16 million lawsuit settlement paid out by CBS News’ parent company during his interview with “60 Minutes” — in comments that were edited out of the TV broadcast on Sunday night.
“And actually ’60 Minutes’ paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you,” the president told “60 Minutes” reporter Norah O’Donnell during their Mar-a-Lago sitdown.
The comment did not make it into the final cut of the CBS broadcast — though it was included in the extended “Overtime” version that the Tiffany Network posts on its YouTube channel.
CBS News also posted a full transcript of the interview.
Trump also praised the new management at CBS News, particularly Bari Weiss, the co-founder of The Free Press newsletter who was named by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison as editor-in-chief of the news division that oversees “60 Minutes” — another remark which didn’t make air.
“[Y]ou have a great — I think you have a great, new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise is a great — from what I know,” the president said in reference to the avowedly pro-Israel and anti-woke Weiss.
“I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person,” Trump said of Weiss.
“But ’60 Minutes’ was forced to pay me — a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election.”
Trump referred to the October 2024 interview with his Democratic opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which he claimed was deceptively edited to make her sound more succinct and concise.
“And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that,” Trump said in the unaired remarks to O’Donnell.
“You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”
The Harris interview prompted Trump to file a lawsuit against CBS and its then-parent company, Paramount Global, which decided to seek a settlement rather than having the case go to court.
The settlement with Trump sparked outrage in light of the fact that Paramount Global was seeking approval from the administration’s regulatory agencies to complete its merger with Skydance, headed by David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder and Trump backer Larry Ellison.
Weeks after the settlement was signed this past summer, the Paramount-Skydance merger was approved.
One of David Ellison’s first moves as head of the newly merged entity was to hand the reins of CBS News over to Weiss, who sold her Free Press site to Paramount Skydance for a reported $150 million.
Since taking over last month, Weiss has ruffled feathers at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street in Manhattan.
During one meeting, she bluntly asked “60 Minutes” producers why many Americans view them as biased.
Weiss also personally took the trouble to book high-profile guests for “60 Minutes,” including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
The initial weeks of Weiss’s tenure as top editorial boss at CBS News has been met with resistance from staffers — some of whom describe the workplace as a “snake pit” where veteran producers are loath to easily yield to change and will likely try to undermine the new regime with leaks, insiders told The Post.
Another segment that didn’t make it to air on the Sunday broadcast was a testy exchange between Trump and O’Donnell about his controversial decision to pardon Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
O’Donnell pressed Trump about the pardon, which Trump issued after Binance struck a $2 billion deal with the Trump family’s crypto venture World Liberty Financial.
“How do you address the appearance of pay for play?” O’Donnell asked Trump.
“Okay, are you ready? I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt,” Trump said.
“And what I wanna do is see crypto, ’cause if we don’t do it it’s gonna go to China, it’s gonna go to — this is no different to me than AI.”
“I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it,” a visibly frustrated Trump said.
“You just came to me and you said, “Can I ask another question?” And I said, yeah.”
The Post has sought comment from Biden, Binance, CBS News, Paramount Skydance and the White House.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
