Angry Chuck Schumer Denounces ‘Unhinged’ Trump Interview on ‘60 Minutes,’ Threatens Formal Complaint: FCC Fires Back

The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, wants the Federal Communications Commission to investigate CBS News for its interview with President Trump, but the chairman of the agency, Brendan Carr, says the senator should work on opening the government instead of submitting a “frivolous” complaint. Mr. Trump sat down for his first interview with “60 Minutes” in five years; it aired on Sunday. The exchange also came after CBS’s parent company, Paramount, paid $16 million to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against CBS for its editing of Vice President Kamala Harris’s October 2024 “60 Minutes” interview, which critics said was selectively edited to make her sound more coherent. CBS and Paramount previously defended the editing decisions.Paramount was recently acquired by Skydance, which is controlled by the Ellison family. Before receiving approval to close the purchase, the Ellisons committed to CBS News providing fair and objective news coverage.Liberal critics noted that significant portions of Mr. Trump’s roughly 73-minute interview had been edited out of the version that aired on TV, such as his praise of the network’s new owner and his celebration of Paramount’s $16 million settlement. The full transcript of the interview shows that on a couple of occasions, Mr. Trump suggested the network could edit out his responses. Newsmagazine programs always edit interviews for brevity. In the case of its interview with Ms. Harris, “60 Minutes” producers, after mistakenly releasing promotional clips for the interview, were exposed for having edited the interview to make her seem more coherent. Furthermore. CBS refused to release a transcript of the interview until after the 2024 presidential election. This time, CBS immediately released its transcript and was fully transparent about the edits.Mr. Schumer posted on X early Monday, “Maybe I should file a complaint with the FCC against the Trump White House for editing his unhinged 60 Minutes interview.”“It will use the exact same language Trump lodged against Vice President Harris,” he added. Mr. Carr shot back, “Due to the Schumer Shutdown, even your frivolous filing could not be processed by the FCC.”“But seriously, you should end the Schumer Shutdown-which is imposing real pain on American families-rather than nonsense posting,” he said. “You should open the government, rather than using Americans’ pain to pander to your far left flank.”Mr. Carr has not been shy about using his agency to investigate and pressure outlets that produce coverage critical of Mr. Trump.Last year, the FCC investigated a news distortion complaint against CBS News over the editing of the Harris interview. Liberal critics of the Trump administration alleged that the FCC was using that investigation as a pretext for holding up approval of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount until Mr. Trump’s lawsuit was resolved. In September, Mr. Carr appeared to threaten ABC after its late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, said that a “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”“When you see stuff like this, I mean look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” Mr. Carr told a conservative podcaster, Benny Johnson. During an interview at the Concordia Summit at New York City, Mr. Carr denied that he was threatening ABC, saying, “What I spoke about last week is that when concerns are raised about news distortion … there’s an easy way for parties to address that and work that out. In the main, that takes place between local television stations that are licensed by the FCC and what we call national programmers like Disney. They work that out, and there doesn’t need to be any involvement of the FCC.”“If they don’t, there’s a way that is not as easy, which is someone can file a complaint at the FCC, and then the FCC, by law, as set up by Congress, has to adjudicate that complaint,” he said. But, now that CBS News has been bought by Skydance, led by David Ellison — the son of the world’s second-richest man and a Trump supporter, Larry Ellison — Mr. Carr appears reluctant to investigate the Tiffany Network. Mr. Trump showered praise on the Ellisons during his “60 Minutes” interview, which did not air on TV, saying, “I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership.“I think it’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press,” he said.He also praised the newly installed, pro-Israel editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, calling her a “great person.”Besides the potential ideological reasons for not investigating a complaint from Mr. Schumer, the FCC has suspended most of its operations due to the government shutdown. Last month, the agency furloughed 81 percent of its staff and said it would stop answering consumer complaint phone lines.Tuesday will mark the 35th day of the shutdown, making it the longest in history. Pressure increased on lawmakers to reopen the government over the weekend as millions of Americans were set to lose their SNAP food aid. Democrats have insisted they will not vote to open the government without an agreement to address government health care subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. Mr. Trump slammed Democrats for blocking efforts to reopen the government during his “60 Minutes” interview, calling them “crazed lunatics” who “lost their way.”CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

Angry Chuck Schumer Denounces ‘Unhinged’ Trump Interview on ‘60 Minutes,’ Threatens Formal Complaint: FCC Fires Back

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