President Donald Trump has responded after it emerged that CBS News had deceptively edited the footage from Kamala Harris’s “60 Minutes” interview to benefit the Democrat presidential nominee.
Trump is demanding that CBS release the full unedited interview footage to show the American people why the network had to run damage control for Harris.
It comes after a significant discrepancy was discovered that appears to show that the interview was deceptively altered to benefit Harris.
The moment in question came when host Bill Whitaker was discussing with Harris the United States’ financial support for Israel.
“But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening,” Whitaker said to Harris.
However, CBS News released two different clips showing Harris responding differently to Whitaker’s remark.
In a promotional clip that was posted by CBS News on Sunday, Harris responded by saying:
“The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”
In the clip, the relevant portion starts at 1:36.
WATCH:
Monday, on a 60 Minutes election special, Bill Whitaker asks Vice President Kamala Harris if the U.S. lacks influence over American ally Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. https://t.co/TG3WOCA23A pic.twitter.com/IH6MXMjuCP
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 6, 2024
On Monday night, the full “60 Minutes” interview was published by the network.
However, that statement from Harris was nowhere to be found anywhere in the interview.
Those words were not included anywhere in the television broadcast nor did they appear in the interview when it was posted on YouTube.
The comments from Harris didn’t appear in the interview’s transcript or the show’s “Overtime” segment.
Whitaker’s identical statement that “it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening” was still included in the broadcast version.
Yet, on television and in the interview posted online, Whitaker’s identical statement is followed by Harris saying:
“We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
CBS also shared the second version of the clip in a post on X, with the relevant portion beginning at 1:19.
WATCH:
With just 29 days until Election Day, Bill Whitaker sits down with Vice President Kamala Harris. One year after Hamas’ terror attack on Israel, Whitaker starts by asking Harris what the U.S. can do to prevent an all-out regional war in the Middle East. https://t.co/NsOjzQIL5O pic.twitter.com/dRruqbEaqg
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 8, 2024
The second set of remarks from Harris is what is included in the transcript published by the network.
The Trump campaign responded to the discrepancy.
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s National Press Secretary, blasted the network for “deceptively” editing Harris’s answer “to lessen Kamala’s idiotic response.”
“Why did 60 Minutes choose not to air Kamala’s full word salad, and what else did they choose not to air?” asked Leavitt in a Tuesday night statement.
“The American people deserve the full, unedited transcript from Kamala’s sit-down interview.
“We call upon 60 Minutes and CBS to release it.
“What do they, and Kamala, have to hide?”
A closer look at Harris’ remarks and the state of the 2024 presidential race indicates that the edit was intended to do more than just “lessen Kamala’s idiotic response.”
In Harris’s initial response, she said that the Biden-Harris administration’s work and advocacy led to a lot of what Israel has done in the region.
Harris’s response came within the context of Whitaker talking about Netanyahu taking the fight to Hezbollah, despite objections from the administration.
His insistence was on eradicating Hamas from Gaza so the terrorist group could not carry out another October 7-like attack in the future.
Harris’s answer is politically problematic for her as she tries to pick up key swing states.
The Democrat nominee needs to win key swing states if she is to beat Trump in next month’s election.
One of the states that Harris needs to win is Michigan.
Michigan has a large Islamic population that has been angered over Israel’s war against Hamas.
Many Mulsim Democrats in the state are refusing to vote for Harris in the election to protest support for Israel.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) warned donors last week that internal polling from her Senate campaign shows that Harris is “underwater” and trailing Trump in the state, Axios reported.
The New York Times reported on Monday, the first anniversary of October 7, that Israel’s war against Islamic terror groups in the Middle East was “threatening the Democratic coalition in the United States.”
The report states:
Nowhere are those tensions more politically important than in Michigan, a crucial battleground state with a significant population of Arab American and Muslim voters.
Four years ago, President Biden won Michigan with strong backing from many of those Americans. But interviews this weekend with voters, activists and community leaders in the Detroit area suggested that support for the Democratic ticket has not merely eroded among Arab Americans and Muslims.
In some neighborhoods, it has all but vanished.
Harris has responded to her eroding support among Muslims by meeting with Arab leaders in Michigan.
It comes as a growing number of Jews in the United States say they feel threatened by anti-Semitic violence and the political Left’s embrace of pro-Hamas protesters.
Harris’s answer on “60 Minutes” threatened to inflame tensions among the Islamic community, however.
Many Muslim voters would likely view Harris’s statement as an admission that the administration supports all or most of Israel’s actions.
The response ultimately aired is effectively the opposite of what she originally stated.
“We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end,” Harris said in the answer.
That answer would appease the Islamic community, which has largely sought an end to Israel’s military since October 8, 2023.
The “60 Minutes” deceptive edits were originally exposed in a viral post on X.
The post contains a video that shows both versions side-by-side.
WATCH:
Remember Kamala’s word salad answer about Israel on 60 Minutes? It’s gone.
This is what many Americans will now see. pic.twitter.com/H4w7btDv6x
— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 8, 2024
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