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LOS ANGELES.–When CBS News “60 Minutes” interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris Oct. 7, 2024, she was hoping it would help lift her in the polls but instead it exposed egregious bias at CBS to to beat 78-year-old President Donald Trump.  Trump’s lawyers reviewed the original transcript and determined that CBS deliberately altered her response to make her look more coherent.  “There have been reports in the media about a settlement and/or apology,” senior producer Bill Owens said.  “The company knows I will not apologize for anything we have done,” Owens said in a defiant tone.  Trump sued CBS for $10 billion claiming they tried to tilt the election toward Kamala, deliberately editing her interview transcript to make her look better to the public.  CBS has been ordered by Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr to respond to a request for the edited transcript.

            Trump recent won a $15 million settlement from ABC News for its chief political reporter George Stephanopoulos saying Trump was a rapist determined in his civil trial with former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll.  Stephanopoulos, another pro-Kamala reporter, called Trump a rapist when the civil trial concluded he had sexually abused Carroll at some murky time in the 90s in an unknown dressing room at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman.  ABC was forced to settle the case paying Trump $15 million and $1 million in attorneys fees.  Stephanopoulos was forced to apologize about misspeaking about Trump actions in the E. Jean Carroll case.  “The company [CBS] knows I will not apologize for anything we have done,” Owens said, showing the kind of defensiveness making CBS look guilty.  Owens insists that the edit done by CBS was perfectly within industry guidelines.

            Trump recent $25 million settlement with Meta [Facebook] for cancelling his account after the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots also shows that the social media company made a serious mistake blocking his account.  When it comes to CBS “60 Minutes” it’s a show with a 56-year history of trust with the public, counting on its factual content for over a half-century.  So, when Trump called out CBS for altering Kamala’s transcript to make her look good, it was a big deal because it showed undeniable political bias in the 2024 presidential election. “The edit is perfectly fine, let’s put that to bed so we can get on with our lives,” Owens said, regarding the doctored transcript reported in the New York Times.  Owens wants to pretend the edit of Kamala’s transcript had no significance, when, in fact, it revealed CBS had an ax to grind in the 2024 presidential race, demonstrating egregious political bias.

            CBS had its problems in the past when in 1984, former Managing Director and CBS Nightly News anchor Dan Rather allowed his news room corrupted by the campaign of Democrat presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).  Once investigated by CBS, they terminated Rather, the most venerable news anchors since Walter Cronkite.  So, when Owens says doctoring a transcript to make Kamala look better is “just fine,” it makes you wonder what else is going on in the news division.  Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit alleges that CBS doctored Kamala’s transcript to make her look more coherent, when there were real question about her ability to articulate campaign issues. Harris was interviewed by Democrat-friendly reporter Bill Whitaker who found her response inarticulate at best.  Kamala had a real problem explaining domestic and foreign policy issues.

            Trump’s lawsuit held CBS’s feet to the fire, claiming doctoring the transcript was deliberately done to make Harris look good before the election.  “To paper over Kamala’s ‘word salad’ weakness, CBS use its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of the news,” Trump attorneys wrote in the FCC complaint.  Trump’s attorneys said CBS transcript alteration “attempted to tip the scale in favor of the Democrat Party as the heated 2024 Presidential Election—which President Trump is leading—approaches its conclusion,” said Trump’s attorneys.  CBS got its hands caught in the cookie jar at a time when the public’s trust in the legacy media is at an all-time low.  Trump’s decisive win in the 2024 election was a voter backlash against the biased U.S. press that pushed for Kamala.

            Trump $10 billion lawsuit against CBS News accuses the network of election interference, taking sides when U.S. media companies are suppose to remain nonpartisan and political neutral in presidential campaigns. “CBS Parent Company Parmount Global seeks a planned merger with Skydance Media, owned by Larry Ellison and run by his 42-year-old son David.  Paramount Global’s CEO Shari Redstone, wife of the late Sumner Redstone, wants to merge Paramount Global and Skydance requiring FCC approval.  Settling the lawsuit with Trump would help complete that process.  Whatever CBS does, it stands to lose more credibility if they don’t settle the lawsuit with Trump sometime soon.  Sen. Bernie Sanders  (I-Vt.) urged CBS to not settle with Trump.  Bernie can’t speak to what’s the best business decision for Paramount Global.

About the Author   John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet