Trump files a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS News over the Kamala Harris interview

Donald Trump is suing CBS News for $10 billion, alleging the network deceptively edited an interview with his rival Kamala Harris to unlawfully influence the 2024 presidential election.

The lawsuit, filed in Texas, accuses CBS of “partisan and unlawful election acts and voter interference through malicious, deceptive and substantial news distortion designed to…confuse, deceive and mislead the public” and “attempt to tip the balance ” favor of the Democratic candidate.

His legal team filed the lawsuit in federal court in Amarillo, where the case is expected to go before a judge he appoints. Any appeal against a decision in the case would go to a Louisiana-based appeals court dominated by conservative judges who routinely side in Republican-backed legal challenges.

A case by Trump — who lives in Florida and is suing a New York-based company incorporated in Delaware — will likely go before conservative District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who nominated Trump to the court. Judge Kacsmaryk notably reinstated Trump’s so-called “remain in Mexico” program and ruled to strip government approval of a widely used abortion drug. Both decisions were overturned by the Supreme Court.

Trump has demanded a jury trial and wants to receive $10 billion in damages.

The lawsuit devotes several paragraphs to political attacks, calling President Joe Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign “an unprecedented and anti-democratic political coup” and accusing CBS and other media of “going into overdrive to get Kamala elected.” . In the document, Harris is referred to only by her first name.

Trump’s lawyers claim that news media have “tried to falsely reclassify her as the ‘joy’ candidate, whitewashed her long record of policy failures and painted over her repeated, disqualifying blunders,” including “word salad” and “a hodgepodge of exceptionally incoherent speech. which have drawn disapproval even from dyed-in-the-wool Democratic commentators.

Thursday’s long-running claims, filed just six days before Election Day, follow Trump’s obsessive attacks, baselessly claiming the network did something “illegal” and faked its responses.

He has also repeatedly threatened to revoke CBS’ broadcast license, along with other television networks that have aired critical coverage of his administration and campaign.

Trump has previously filed unsuccessful lawsuits against CNN The New York Times. A judge ruled this year that the former president owes the newspaper and three reporters nearly $400,000 for their legal fees following his failed lawsuit against them.

The Republican presidential candidate also saw no chance to act 60 minutes himself. Anchor Scott Pelley told viewers during the Harris broadcast that Trump’s campaign “complained that we would fact check the interview.”

“We fact-check every story,” Pelley says.

The network has since refuted Trump’s “false” allegations, and a lawyer for the network said there is “no legal basis” for a legal challenge following a legal threat from Trump’s team to turn over unedited transcripts.

It’s about how 60 minutes aired Harris’ answers to a question from host Bill Whitaker about whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu listens to the US.

A preview of the interview that aired on CBS’s Face the Nation shows her response by defending American influence, while the 60 minutes The broadcast includes a response that “we will not stop pursuing whatever it takes for the United States to make clear where we stand on the need to end this war.”

CBS has said the network has aired its full response; the first half aired on the Sunday program and the second half aired on the Monday broadcast as two parts of the same answer to the same question.

“Same question. Same answer. But another part of the response,” the network said in a statement earlier this month.

“When we edit an interview, whether it is with a politician, an athlete or a movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and timely,” the statement said. ‘The part of her answer to 60 minutes was more concise, allowing time for other topics in a broad 21-minute segment.”