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CBS News’ statement on the controversial edition of ’60 Minutes’ falls on social media: ‘Publish. The Transcript.’

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CBS News’ statement on the controversial edition of ’60 Minutes’ falls on social media: ‘Publish. The Transcript.’

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CBS News’ defiant statement defending its controversial editing of its “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month went down well with critics, who have stepped up calls for the network to release a transcript unedited

After weeks of remaining silent despite growing criticism over the interview, CBS released a statement Sunday evening addressing the outrage that followed after it aired two different answers to the same question in the interview “60 Minutes” earlier this month with the Democratic nominee.

CBS News infamously aired Harris offering a widely mocked, rambling response to a critical question about Israel when promoting the interview, but a shorter answer to the same question was shown in prime time on “60 Minutes.” The CBS News statement said former President Trump’s claim that “misleading editing” was used is “false” and explained that producers used a “more succinct” portion of Harris’ response.

CBS NEWS BREAKS ITS SILENCE ON EDITING ALLEGATIONS IN ’60 MINUTES’ INTERVIEW WITH HARRIS

Donald Trump's campaign issued a scathing statement in response to a challenger "60 minutes" comment on her controversial editing of her interview with Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month, saying the show had essentially admitted it made her sound better and asking the CBS show to release a full transcript of the interview.

Former President Trump and others are unhappy with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” over the controversial editing of its interview with Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month. (Left: (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images), Center: Screenshot/60Minutes, Right: (Photo by Andy Manis/Getty Images))

“Instead of releasing the full 60 Minutes interview and transcript, CBS released a statement somehow blaming Donald Trump,” Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell told Fox News Digital.

“Is CBS a News Organization or a Democratic Super PAC?” Bozell added. “If CBS has nothing to hide, it should stop hiding.”

Fox News contributor Joe Concha noted that CBS News took 14 days to issue a statement.

“This statement put out by ’60 Minutes’ makes absolutely no sense,” Concha said Monday on “FOX & Friends First.”

“The only resolution here is for the show to release the full transcript. Release the dogs, release the entire interview from start to finish, but the network won’t,” Concha continued. — Do you know why they won’t?

Concha believes there are two reasons why CBS won’t comply.

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Harris 60 minutes

Bill Whitaker interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris on an episode of “60 Minutes” that aired earlier this month. (Screenshots/CBS News)

“One, the people who run the network want Kamala Harris to win and Donald Trump to lose. This is not journalism, this is activism,” Concha said.

“Two, they know that by releasing the unedited transcript or video, it will likely show that on several occasions, this interview cut to the guts of the various word salads that the vice president served up again,” he added. “His campaign now just comes down to talking about Trump. It’s not working.”

Former President Trump dramatically called it possibly the “biggest scandal in the history of broadcasting” in a message posted on X.

Trump also sent a letter to CBS News demanding it release the unedited transcript. In copy of the letter obtained by Fox News Digital, Trump’s legal counsel Edward Andrew Paltzik, writing on Trump’s behalf, said CBS News “intentionally misled the public by releasing a cleverly edited transcript of the interview … with aimed at causing confusion among the electorate about Vice President Kamala Harris’ skills, intelligence, and appeal.”

OutKick’s Dan Zaksheske said CBS could “release the entire interview or the transcript” and put this ordeal to bed.

“It’s 2024. It’s not like CBS has to air the interview on network TV. Put it on YouTube. It’d probably get 10 million views. It should be easy and generate an additional audience for the ‘interview,” wrote Zaksheske.

“The only reason they wouldn’t is if they don’t want people to see the whole interview,” he added. “That’s what makes people suspicious.”

Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson believes releasing the full transcript is “essential, as there appears at first glance to be an inconsistency between the two responses issued” by the network.

“If, in fact, CBS News cherry-picked different segments of a longer response, as it claims, the public should still see the full response and context. If CBS News has nothing to hide, then why is it hiding the full transcript?” Jacobson told Fox News Digital.

The Trump campaign released a scathing comment in response to CBS News’ explanation, and the “60 Minutes” statement was quickly thrown around on social media.

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“The way you know 60 Minutes is 100% guilty and just mad about getting caught is that they published this pathetically defensive statement that almost immediately says ‘but Trump’ instead of publishing the full transcript of Kamala’s interview.” replied conservative influencer Greg Price. .

NewsBusters editor-in-chief Curtis Houck asked, “What are you all hiding?”

“Publish. The. Transcript,” replied Article 3 project senior attorney Will Chamberlain while celebrity chef Andrew Gruel said, “That just made it worse.”

Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway continued to demand that CBS release an unedited transcript.

“60 Minutes continues to hide the unedited transcript of their interview with Kamala Harris. Here, they also lie about the controversy surrounding that transcript. The extent of their misleading edits must be SIGNIFICANT for them to refuse to release the transcript real,” wrote Hemingway. .

Hemingway added in a separate post: “Release the unedited transcript. How bad is what you’re hiding?”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., agreed and called for CBS News to “release the FULL transcript and video.”

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“When you explain … you’re losing,” added comedian Tim Young.

“It seems like it would be a lot easier to release the transcript… Something that, by the way, should be standard procedure for all news organizations for interviews with political candidates,” AG Hamilton reacted.

Others mocked CBS News for the explanation:

The CBS News statement insisted that Harris’ two audio notes were both in response to correspondent Bill Whitaker asking why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared not to be listening to the US.

“Former President Donald Trump accuses 60 Minutes of misleading editing of our October 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is false,” the statement began.

“’60 Minutes’ gave an excerpt of our interview to ‘Face the Nation’ that used a longer section of his answer than ’60 Minutes’ did. Same question, but a different part of the answer. When we edit any interview, whether it’s a politician, athlete or movie star, we strive to be clear, precise and to the point Minutes was more succinct, allowing time for other topics in a broad 21-minute segment” .

At the time, the statement said Trump “withdrew his interview with ’60 Minutes’ and the vice president participated.” The Trump campaign denied ever formally accepting the interview invitation.

“Our longstanding invitation to former President Trump remains open,” the statement continued. “If you’d like to discuss the issues facing the nation and interview Harris, we’d love to have you on 60 Minutes.”

TRUMP CAMPAIGN RETURNS TO ’60 MINUTES’ AFTER SHOW DEFENDS KAMALA HARRIS EDIT: ‘NOT A DENIAL’

DePauw University professor Jeffrey McCall said CBS “may not know,” but a key issue in the campaign is whether Harris can consistently express his positions and thoughts and the statement “hardly puts the question”.

“She has developed a reputation as someone who has trouble articulating her rhetorical points and sometimes ends up speaking with ‘word salads.'” So when CBS engages in any kind of editing of an interview news with Harris, she’s actually manipulating and altering the content more articulately than she would otherwise,” McCall told Fox News Digital.

CBS News did not immediately respond Monday when asked if it would release the transcript. The network has ignored calls to release the transcript or unedited footage since the controversy began.

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Fox News Digital’s David Rutz, Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Yael Halon contributed to this report.

OutKick and Fox News Digital share common ownership.

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