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By Marni Rose McFall
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President Donald Trump appeared on CBS News’ 60 Minutes in an interview that aired on November 2, marking his first appearance on the show after the network settled a lawsuit over edits to a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump's interview drew 14 million viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which cited data from Nielsen. This was significantly more than watched Harris’ interview.
Why It Matters
The Republican settled a lawsuit with CBS over a 60 Minutes interview with Harris in October 2024. Trump argued that the interview with Harris, who was Trump’s Democratic opponent in that year's presidential election, had been edited to make her look good.
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CBS released the unedited transcript of the interview and video clips in February following the dispute, and said that they had proved the broadcast was not “doctored or deceitful.”
Though CBS contended that it did nothing wrong in its editing of the interview, parent company Paramount decided to pay Trump $16 million to settle the case, shortly before the Federal Communications Commission approved Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media.
What To Know
The 60 Minutes episode featuring Harris garnered 5.97 million viewers for its first half, when the interview with Harris aired, and 5.7 million viewers for the full hour.
This puts viewership for Harris’ episode at less than half of Trump’s.
Trump had initially been scheduled to do a 60 Minutes interview during the 2024 presidential campaign, but pulled out.
Trump spoke about the viewership figure for his episode, writing on Truth Social, that it was the “highest rated” 60 Minutes edition in years.
The Trump interview had the highest same-day viewership figures for 60 Minutes since an episode in January 2021. That aired after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and featured interviews with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger. That episode had 14.9 million viewers.
According to publicly available data from U.S. TVDB, 60 Minutes is currently the second most popular show on CBS, with an audience of 11 million, next to NFL National, which has an audience of 25 million.
The interview with Trump did not come without scrutiny, despite its strong viewership figures.
60 Minutes has been scrutinized for airing an edited version of the interview. The president was interviewed for over 70 minutes for the show by CBS’ Norah O’Donnell at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.
However, only 30 minutes of the interview aired, which prompted criticism on social media.
CBS though, posted the edited and full interview with Trump on its website and on YouTube, following the airing of the episode, and also shared a transcript of the interview.
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump in a post on Truth Social: “The 60 Minutes interview of Donald J. Trump, on CBS, Sunday night, was the highest rated 60 Minutes IN YEARS!”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, in a post on X viewed over 200,000 times: “Trump's "60 Minutes" interview draws roughly 13M viewers.”
Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary in his first term, in a post on X viewed over 11,000 times: ‘Paramount paid President Trump $16 million for editing a Kamala interview in order to influence the outcome of the election. Then they edited an hour and 13 minute 60 Minutes interview with him to 27 minutes…..how much this time?”
Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of the liberal news outlet MeidasTouch in a post on X viewed over 600,000 times: “So CBS settled Trump’s lawsuit where he frivolously sued because they edited Kamala Harris’ interview so it would fit into their air time. Then CBS does a 73 minute interview of Trump where they made big edits from the version that was broadcast. They aired 28 of 73 minutes.”
Political commentator Tim Miller in a post viewed 1.5 million times: “60 Minutes did not air the part where Trump discusses his success in extorting the network and calls them Fake News. This edit is harmful to me and I’m considering suing.”
What’s Next
Viewership figures for 60 Minutes may continue to vary in the future and be influenced by changes in the political climate.
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