FCC Requests Full Transcript of ’60 Minutes’ Interview With Harris Amid Paramount Deal Review
- CBS News will comply with the FCC's request for a full unedited transcript and feeds from its interview with Vice President Harris.
CBS News says it will comply with a request from the Federal Communications Commissions for a "full unedited transcript" and feeds from its interview with Vice President Harris.
"Late Wednesday, CBS News was sent a Letter of Inquiry from the Federal Communications Commission asking for the full, unedited transcript and camera feeds from our interview with Vice President Harris which aired on October 7, 2024. We are working to comply with that inquiry as we are legally compelled to do," CBS said in a statement.
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The request came as the FCC reviews Paramount Global's planned merger with Skydance Media. The agency is led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr, who's threatened to revoke broadcast licenses for stations owned by networks that've drawn the president's ire under the agency's authority to ensure that public airwaves operate in the public interest.
The letter also comes in the wake of murmurs over CBS potentially electing to settle a lawsuit from President Donald Trump' over a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. In the $10 billion suit, Trump has alleged that the network edited the interview to try to help her win the election, targeting the inclusion of a longer section of her response to a question about the conflict in the Middle East.
Instead of defamation, Trump alleged that CBS violated Texas' consumer protection law covering deceptive advertising. He brought an identical claim against pollster J. Ann Selzer, the Des Moines Register and Gannett, the newspaper's parent company, for "brazen election interference" over releasing a poll showing Harris leading in Iowa, which Trump won.
FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez issued a statement saying she believed the action was politically motivated given that the complaint had previously been dismissed by the agency.
Gomez's full statement is below:
During these last two weeks, the FCC has shown a concerning pattern of implementing the will of the Administration on issues that go far beyond our core responsibilities. These actions disregard long-standing norms and ignore the mandate granted by Congress to the FCC to act as an independent agency. They also set a dangerous precedent that threatens to undermine trust in the agency's role as an impartial regulator.
This latest action to weaponize our broadcast licensing authority is no different. It revives a complaint that had been previously dismissed by FCC experts due to lack of evidence and because it fell far short of the high standard needed for agency action.
Let's be clear. This is a retaliatory move by the government against broadcasters whose content or coverage is perceived to be unfavorable. It is designed to instill fear in broadcast stations and influence a network's editorial decisions .
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