CBS News is defending its decision to run anchor Tony Dokoupil’s entire interview with President Donald Trump, after a report that the White House threatened to sue the network if it was edited.
The New York Times reported Saturday that it had reviewed unaired footage from immediately after the interview took place.
As soon as Dokoupil wrapped up his 13-minute interview with Trump at a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, press secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered a message to Dokoupil and his colleagues that she said came from the president: “Make sure you guys don’t cut the tape, make sure the interview is out in full,” Leavitt said, according to the Times.
Dokoupil agreed, but Leavitt doubled down.
“He said, ‘If it’s not out in full, we’ll sue your ass off,’” she said, the Times reported.
Some CBS staff on hand thought Leavitt was joking, the Times wrote, citing a person familiar with their thinking.
Leavitt, however, told the Times that “The American people deserve to watch President Trump’s full interviews, unedited, no cuts. And guess what? The interview ran in full.”
In a statement to the Times, CBS said it was always its intention to air the complete interview.
“The moment we booked this interview, we made the independent decision to air it unedited and in its entirety,” CBS News said.
Trump sued CBS in 2024 for editing a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, in a case that legal observers said lacked merit and that most in the media said involved standard journalism practices.
The network’s parent company, Paramount, paid Trump a $16 million settlement, with part of the payment going toward Trump’s legal fees and some to fund his future presidential library. The company — which was seeking federal regulators’ approval at the time for its purchase of Skydance — did not admit fault as part of the deal.
CBS also recently came under fire after the network’s new editor-in-cheif, Bari Weiss, tabled a story in December, hours before it was to air, about allegations of abuse at a maximum-security prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has sent migrants. Weiss said she held the story because it wasn’t ready.
The story was set to air Sunday evening, CNN reported, citing sources at CBS.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.