President Trump railed against CBS on Sunday night, saying the network should lose its broadcast license after “60 Minutes” aired segments on Ukraine and Greenland that the president said cast him in a negative light.
“Almost every week, 60 Minutes … mentions the name ‘TRUMP’ in a derogatory and defamatory way, but this Weekend’s ‘BROADCAST’ tops them all,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post after watching Sunday’s “60 Minutes” broadcast.
“They did not one, but TWO, major stories on ‘TRUMP,’ one having to do with Ukraine, which I say is a War that would never have happened if the 2020 Election had not been RIGGED, in other words, if I were President and, the other story was having to do with Greenland, casting our Country, as led by me, falsely, inaccurately, and fraudulently,” he continued.
Trump sued CBS News in October over a “60 Minutes” interview with his campaign opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, that aired shortly before the 2024 presidential election. In the lawsuit, Trump claimed the network deceptively edited the interview to portray Harris in a positive light.
CBS News’s parent company, Paramount, has said the president’s lawsuit is an “affront to the First Amendment and is without basis in law or fact,” claiming Trump is trying to “punish a news organization for constitutionally protected editorial judgments they do not like.”
The New York Times reported earlier this month that Trump and Paramount are set to begin mediation in the $20 billion lawsuit, in the hopes of reaching a settlement.
The Hill has reached out to CBS News for comment on Trump’s latest remarks.
It’s unclear exactly what prompted Trump’s ire, but both segments quoted foreign leaders criticizing Trump.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in the interview, told correspondent Scott Pelley that “Russian narratives are prevailing in the U.S.” and welcomed Trump to visit the country.
“We want you to come, and, I think, to come and to see. You think you understand what’s going on here. OK, we respect your position. You understand. But, please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead,” Zelensky said.
The “60 Minutes” report on Greenland featured various political and business leaders criticizing Trump’s ambitions to control the territory.
“When he mentioned Greenland like it was a toy or … something,” Aqqaluk Lynge, an elder Inuit statesman, told Jon Wertheim, referring to Trump’s address to Congress last month.
“You noticed that?” Wertheim asked.
“We all noticed that in Greenland, all of us. And it was ugly,” Lynge said.
