Toward the end of Donald Trump’s nearly 90-minute sit-down with Norah O’Donnell at Mar-a-Lago, the president bragged about how “60 Minutes” had paid him “a lotta money.”
“You don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you,” he added.
CBS did not air that line during Sunday’s broadcast, though O’Donnell did reference the lawsuit against parent company Paramount in her intro to the interview and the network published Trump’s remarks in a full transcript online.
What a difference a year makes.
During the final stretch of the 2024 election, Trump backed out of an interview with the newsmagazine, while Kamala Harris appeared on the show. In late October, then-candidate Trump sued CBS News for $10 billion, claiming the network deceptively edited the Harris interview when airing differing clips on CBS programs, a claim the network dismissed as “completely without merit” while pledging to defend itself in court.
But this interview showed just how much the political and media worlds have been upended. Trump’s return to the White House led Paramount, looking to complete its merger with Skydance Media, to settle with the president for $16 million. (Amid the settlement discussions, “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens resigned, suggesting he no longer had editorial independence.) Now, David Ellison, son of megabillionaire Trump supporter Larry Ellison, runs Paramount and last month installed Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as CBS News’ editor-in-chief, who Trump described on Sunday as “great.”
“I see good things happening in the news. I really do. And I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership,” Trump added. “I think it’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.”
Despite the flipped circumstances surrounding Sunday’s program, we got a quintessential Trump interview, one in which he made wild claims, attacked opponents and feigned ignorance about the controversies surrounding him.
It came in spite of O’Donnell’s mission to keep the focus on domestic issues and foreign affairs, from the government shutdown and immigration crackdown to Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his thoughts on Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. She deftly cover a lot of ground, taking advantage of the rare opportunity to question Trump at length on timely topics.
At one point, O’Donnell referenced videos of “ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood and the smashing of car windows,” before asking Trump, “Have some of these raids gone too far?”
“I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama,” he responded.
There was plenty of finger-pointing from Trump, whose first words on the broadcast were “Democrats’ fault” in response to a question about the shutdown.
In typical fashion, Trump lashed out at political adversaries like Joe Biden (“worst president”), Letitia James (“terrible, dishonest”) and James Comey (“dirty cop”), while falsely claiming to have “solved” eight wars and overseeing “the greatest nine months in the history of the presidency.”
Oh, and on the subject of Zohran Mamdani, Trump said, “I think I’m a much better looking person than him.” (Trump also said he’d prefer a “bad Democrat” like Andrew Cuomo to a “communist”; Mamdani, a democratic socialist, played up the “endorsement” of his opponent on social media.)
Amid the mockery and bluster, O’Donnell tried to keep the interview on track. And yet Trump would veer off into tangents or rants, like about how the 2020 election was “rigged” against him, a familiar gripe that ended up on the cutting room floor when it came to the two broadcast segments.
O’Donnell wasn’t lobbing softballs, but some questioned the utility of this journalistic exercise. TV news veteran John Harwood said on social media that the CBS News journalist was “doing a fine job w/Trump, but interviewing someone who only responds with dishonest nonsense has very limited value.”
The value in interviewing Trump has been a debate in media circles now going on a decade. But at the same time, Trump is the president, and he arguably should be pressed on how he’s exercising his power in office.
Take last month’s pardon of Changpeng Zhao, or “CZ,” the Binance founder who pleaded guilty in 2023 to money-laundering activities that funneled funds to terrorists, child abusers and other criminals, and whose cryptocurrency exchange has dealings with Trump family crypto company World Liberty Financial.
“I don’t know who he is,” Trump said when O’Donnell asked about the pardon, before suggesting the case was a “a Biden witch hunt.”
It was a revealing moment on the broadcast, but the exchange went on longer, according to the transcript. While Trump appeared in control on the show, he seemed to bristle at O’Donnell’s follow-ups.
“So not concerned about the appearance of corruption with this?” O’Donnell asked.
“I’m not concerned,” he responded. “I don’t — I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I’ll let you ask it. You just came to me and you said, ‘Can I ask another question?’ And I said, yeah. This is the question—”
“And you answered,” she said.
“I don’t mind. Did I let you do it?” Trump said. “I coulda walked away.”
The last time Trump appeared on “60 Minutes,” in Oct. 2020, he did walk away after being annoyed by questions from Lesley Stahl. But on this occasion, Trump stuck around, and given his gushing about the new regime at CBS News, it seems likely he’ll be willing to return.