The CBS News program 60 Minutes heavily edited down an interview with Donald Trump that aired on Sunday night, his first sit-down with the show in five years.
Trump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.
While 60 Minutes traditionally cuts down interviews, these edits are particularly notable because, exactly one year before Trump was interviewed by O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday he had sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, then the vice-president, which he alleged had been deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.
Many legal experts widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, but CBS settled with Trump for $16m in July. As part of the settlement, the network had agreed that it would release transcripts of future interviews of presidential candidates.