In the age of selective outrage and curated reality, Donald Trump has once again thrown the political world into disarray. His $10 billion lawsuit against CBS and its flagship program, 60 Minutes, is not merely an act of personal grievance. It is a novel strategy, an act of resistance against a media establishment that for too long has operated as an extension of the progressive apparatus rather than a guardian of public trust.
The heart of Trump’s grievance is simple yet devastating: 60 Minutes deliberately distorted an interview with then-candidate Kamala Harris during the 2024 election. Trump alleges, and rightly so, that CBS deceptively edited Harris’s incoherent and rambling answer on U.S. influence over Israeli policy, polishing it into a coherent, authoritative response. This act of narrative laundering was not just editorial discretion; it was electioneering under the guise of journalism. The public was not informed, it was managed.
One need only imagine the counterfactual to grasp the gravity of the accusation. Had Trump himself delivered a similarly meandering, confused answer, does anyone doubt that CBS would have aired it in full, with dramatic music and solemn voiceovers about “questions of competence”? The real scandal is not just the bias but the brazenness, the quiet confidence that the gatekeepers would not be held accountable.
The betrayal is even more egregious when considered alongside the infamous Leslie Stahl interview in 2020, where 60 Minutes aggressively peddled the false narrative that the Hunter Biden laptop was “unverified Russian disinformation.” Stahl, posturing as a paragon of journalistic integrity, assured millions that credible reporting on Biden family corruption was unworthy of broadcast. The show repeated that clip endlessly, hammering Trump’s credibility and shielding Biden from scrutiny at a critical electoral moment.
In both instances, 60 Minutes did not simply report news, it constructed reality. Like a stagehand swapping out a broken prop, the editors at CBS took Harris’s blunder and replaced it with a stage-ready performance. They turned the inconvenient truths of Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling into conspiracy theories, then laundered their own misjudgments through the soothing veneer of “responsible journalism.”
Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit is innovative because it side-steps traditional defamation claims, which would tangle in the thorns of First Amendment jurisprudence. Instead, he invokes the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a law crafted to prevent fraudulent business practices. In essence, he argues that CBS, by deceptively editing news content, has foisted a fraudulent product upon the American consumer. Whether this strategy will survive judicial scrutiny is uncertain, but its brilliance lies in exposing the fundamental fraud: a news product marketed as truth but constructed as partisan advertisement. CBS’s decision to enter into mediation, a clear signal that it wishes to settle, only underscores the seriousness of the allegations and the pressure the network now faces to account for its conduct.
The reaction within CBS has been as revealing as the underlying scandal. This week, 60 Minutes’ correspondent Scott Pelley took the extraordinary step of chastising the network’s corporate parent, Paramount, live on air. Pelley’s lament was that Paramount had begun to “supervise our content in new ways,” suggesting that “honest journalism” required freedom from oversight. Viewers were treated to the spectacle of a supposedly impartial newsman mourning his lost autonomy, not because he was being forced to lie, but because he was being forced to stop lying in favor of his political preferences.
The resignation of executive producer Bill Owens only sharpens the indictment. Owens, who had steered 60 Minutes into progressively more partisan waters, left in protest, claiming that the company’s desire for neutrality compromised “journalistic integrity.” Translation: he could no longer pursue an activist agenda under the banner of journalism so he was leaving.
Thus, we arrive at a moment of almost comic irony. The architects of misinformation are not apologizing for their deceptions; they are bemoaning the loss of their ability to continue deceiving without interference. Like petulant playwrights enraged that their scripts must now pass an honest editor, they cry “censorship” while the American people, long skeptical, watch their charade crumble.
What CBS’s defenders refuse to grapple with is the fundamental distinction between journalism and activism. Journalism is the presentation of facts, the pursuit of truth even when it discomforts one’s own side. Activism is the selective curation of facts to advance a cause. The 60 Minutes team’s tantrum reveals that they are no longer willing, if they ever were, to abide by the burdens of journalism. They prefer the freer terrain of activism masquerading as reporting.
The truth is that CBS’s corporate leadership, motivated by a pending merger requiring Trump administration approval, is not demanding false reporting. They are demanding a return to basic fairness, a standard so low it should hardly provoke rebellion, yet in today’s media climate, asking for evenhandedness is tantamount to heresy.
The American people are not stupid. They know when they are being fed a narrative. They know when supposed “news” programs show selective outrage, protect favored politicians, and unleash investigative armies only against designated enemies. Trump’s lawsuit crystallizes this intuition into a formal accusation, forcing CBS and the broader media ecosystem to reckon with their own self-inflicted credibility crisis.
If 60 Minutes wishes to salvage its brand as a news organization, it must embrace transparency and humility. It must air interviews in full, even when the truth embarrasses its ideological favorites. It must treat political actors, left and right, with equal skepticism. And if it cannot bear to do so, if the ideological impulse is too strong, it should simply admit it, and stop pretending.
There is no shame in admitting that one is an advocate. There is shame, however, in deceiving a nation under the pretense of informing it. If 60 Minutes wishes to become the View, an entertainment program for the coastal clerisy, then so be it. But let them say so openly, rather than continuing the farce that they are a beacon of impartial journalism.
The stakes are too high for this deceit to continue unchallenged. Journalism, properly understood, is one of the guardians of a free republic. It holds power to account by speaking truth, not by selecting which truths may be spoken. When it abandons this duty, it becomes a servant of power, not a check upon it.
Trump’s lawsuit, whatever its legal outcome, has already performed a vital service. It has torn back the curtain and forced a confrontation with uncomfortable realities. The American people deserve the truth—not curated reality, not soothing fictions, not advocacy disguised as inquiry. 60 Minutes must choose which it will be: a journalist, or a propagandist.
The hour is late, and the credibility clock is ticking.
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