More Trouble for CBS News as ‘60 Minutes’ Biden Interview Called Into Doubt: Was It Deceptively Edited?

Questions are being raised about CBS News’s “60 Minutes” and whether it deceptively edited an interview with President Biden to cover up signs of his decline months before he ended his re-election bid. Already under fire for the editing of Vice President Harris’s October 2024 interview and its decision to remove a “word salad” from an answer about Israel, an interview that has been nominated for an Emmy, the storied news program is facing questions about whether it selectively edited a fall 2023 interview Mr. Biden did with Scott Pelley, the CBS News personality who’s become the face of its resistance to its corporate overseers. The interview, which aired a week after Hamas’s October 7 attack, focused heavily on the rapidly escalating conflict at the time as a soft-spoken Mr. Biden made declarations of America’s support for the Jewish state. The version that aired showed the president sometimes taking long pauses before answering questions, and at one point, he said Israel has “one of the finest fighting forces in the country”; he appeared to mean “the world.”In the “60 Minutes” interview, which was pre-taped, Mr. Biden sounded authoritative and coherent. A former CBS News journalist, Catherine Herridge, is raising questions about whether that interview was deceptively edited. Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said, “The heavy-handed edit of the Harris interview raises legitimate questions about whether, in October 2023, ’60 Minutes’ gave President Joe Biden the same favorable treatment in the edit room that concealed his cognitive decline.”CBS News has been denounced by President Trump for its editing of the ’60 Minutes’ interview with Vice President Harris. Via CBS NewsMs. Herridge says CBS News should release the unedited video and transcript of the interview. After the Harris interview, the network refused to release the transcript and only did so after it was ordered to by the Federal Communications Commission.CBS News released a transcript of the broadcast version of the interview with Mr. Biden in October 2023. However, camera cuts during the taped segment seem to suggest that portions of Mr. Biden’s answers to individual questions may have been removed. Releasing the full, unedited video would show whether some of the cuts were made to allow Mr. Biden the chance to deliver a better answer or simply for creative purposes. In a voice-over toward the end of the interview, Mr. Pelley said that Mr. Biden “seemed tired from directing” America’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war. The interview happened at about the same time Mr. Biden sat for a deposition with Robert Hur, the special counsel investigating the president’s handling of classified material. Mr. Hur famously observed in his report that Mr. Biden lacked mental acuity and could not remember fundamental details such as when he was vice president and what year his eldest son died.The executive chairwoman of Paramount Global, Shari Redstone, on November 7, 2024, at New York City. Dimitrios Kambouris/ Getty ImagesA transcript of that interview shows that the president said some form of “I don’t know” or “I don’t recall” more than 100 times over two days. When Mr. Hur released his report that said Mr. Biden would be seen as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” if he were to face charges for his handling of classified documents, the special counsel was criticized and accused of trying to secure a job in Mr. Trump’s administration. Mr. Hur is currently representing Harvard University in its legal battle with the Trump administration. The mainstream media had been largely dismissive of any questioning of Mr. Biden’s mental acuity, often aggressively pushing a counter-narrative that partisan actors like Mr. Hur (who clerked for Justice Rehnquist) and “deceptively edited” YouTube videos were creating “misinformation.” All that would change after Mr. Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate performance.CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. The departing executive producer of ’60 Minutes,’ Bill Owens. Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesCBS News has been thrown into turmoil as executives at its parent company, Paramount Global, and Skydance Media seek to complete their merger, which requires the approval of the FCC. At the same time, CBS is facing a $20 billion lawsuit from President Trump — and an FCC news distortion investigation — over its editing of the Harris interview. The FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, has said that could factor into the review of the Skydance deal. Executives at Paramount and Skydance believe that the way to ensure the government approves the deal is to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit. That decision has created friction between executives and the news division, and — along with complaints of an anti-Israel bias in CBS News’s reporting — has led to an environment where the top brass has reportedly sought more editorial control over the historically independent “60 Minutes.”The non-executive chairwoman of Paramount, Shari Redstone, has expressed frustration with “60 Minutes” and its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. She is also reportedly concerned that the program’s harsh coverage of the Trump administration could endanger the Skydance deal. Puck’s Dylan Byers reported last week that Ms. Redstone inquired if “60 Minutes” could hold off on its coverage of Mr. Trump until after the Skydance deal is approved. In light of the growing conflict between Paramount executives and CBS News’ editorial team, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, announced his resignation – effective when the current season ends in two weeks. The CBS News and Stations chief, Wendy McMahon, and her boss, George Cheeks, the co-executive of Paramount. Getty ImagesThe show has been consistently airing uniformly negative stories about the Trump administration, from Mr. Trump’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health to cuts to USAID to his designs upon Greenland. On Sunday evening, the show aired a segment critical of Mr. Trump’s battle with law firms that have employed his persecutors and also donated pro bono work to undermine his policies, as well as to represent a former special counsel, Jack Smith. The anti-Trump series is seen as the show thumbing its nose at the president and Paramount executives. After Executive Producer Bill Owens’s resignation was announced, Mr. Pelley delivered a rare on-air rebuke of Paramount, an extraordinary breach of protocol at a broadcast network. The CEO of CBS News and Stations, Wendy McMahon, and the co-executive of Paramount, George Cheeks, both knew what was planned but did not intervene to stop it, according to a left-wing journalist, Oliver Darcy. There are only three more weeks before “60 Minutes” goes into summer reruns and loses its powerful megaphone. The “Breaker” podcast reports that if Paramount settles Mr. Trump’s lawsuit before the season ends, “60 Minutes” is expected to want to voice its opposition on air. Whether the settlement will require an apology from “60 Minutes” staffers themselves — which they are likely to refuse to do — or terminations remains to be seen. Mr. Owens has resigned and the producer of the Harris interview, Rome Hartman, recently announced he is retiring. He told a reporter this was due to his turning 70 rather than to the furor over the Harris interview.

More Trouble for CBS News as ‘60 Minutes’ Biden Interview Called Into Doubt: Was It Deceptively Edited?

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