Trump Doubles CBS Lawsuit Damages to $20 Billion Over Harris’s 60 Minutes Interview

(Left) Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a "When We Vote We Win" campaign rally at Craig Ranch Amphitheater in North Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 31, 2024; (Right) Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, greets supporters during a campaign rally at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nev., on Oct. 11, 2024. Ethan Miller, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

President Donald Trump has expanded his lawsuit against CBS, doubling the damages sought to $20 billion and adding CBS parent company Paramount Global as a defendant.

The amended complaint, filed on Feb. 7 at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges news distortion, election interference, and financial harm caused by CBS’s handling of its “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.

“It is beyond dispute that Defendants wanted Harris to win the Election, and indeed political gain for Harris was certainly Defendants’ intent behind their tampering with the Interview,” the amended complaint reads. “But Defendants’ primary motivation was commercial and pecuniary gain.”

Trump’s legal team claims that CBS deceptively edited Harris’s responses to make her appear more articulate and composed, while also diverting viewership from Trump’s media platform, Truth Social, reducing ad revenue. The complaint asserts that CBS intentionally aired different portions of Harris’s remarks on “Face the Nation” and “60 Minutes,” misleading the public about her full statements.

“Once Defendants finally released the unedited version of the Interview, it became apparent that they had engaged in gross broadcast distortion cover-up and manipulated not only Harris’s Reply about Prime Minister Netanyahu, but the Interview in its entirety,” the amended complaint reads.

CBS has dismissed the claims and maintains its edits were standard journalistic practice.

“We are posting the same transcripts and videos of our interview with Vice President Kamala Harris that we provided to the FCC [Federal Communications Commission],” the network said in a Feb. 5 statement. “They show–consistent with 60 Minutes’ repeated assurances to the public–that the 60 Minutes broadcast was not doctored or deceitful.”

CBS further stated that a longer portion of Harris’s response aired on Face the Nation while a shorter one aired on 60 Minutes for the sake of brevity.

“As the full transcript shows, we edited the interview to ensure that as much of the vice president’s answers to 60 Minutes’ many questions were included in our original broadcast while fairly representing those answers,” the network stated. “60 Minutes’ hard-hitting questions of the vice president speak for themselves.”

The uncut transcript reveals that some of Harris’s answers were cut roughly in half and clarifies her full response to a question about the Israel–Hamas war, which Trump’s campaign claimed was awkwardly phrased and was unfairly edited to improve her image. The transcript also shows that Harris’s complete answer was a combination of the two aired clips.

“Well, Bill, 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. And we’re not going to stop doing that. We are not going to 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, per the transcript.

Reacting to the transcript’s release, Trump wrote in a post on social media that it shows CBS had removed Harris’s “horrible election changing answers” and replaced them with better ones and that this was election interference and “election fraud at a level never seen before.” He also called for CBS to lose its broadcasting license.

Trump’s original lawsuit, filed on Oct. 31, 2024, sought $10 billion in damages from CBS for alleged news distortion and election interference. The amended complaint seeks an additional $10 billion under the Lanham Act, which covers false advertising and unfair competition, citing harm to Trump’s business interests, including Truth Social.

“As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ misconduct, significant viewership was improperly diverted to Defendants’ media platforms, resulting in lower consumer engagement, advertising revenues, and profits by TMTG and President Trump’s other media holdings,” the amended complaint reads.

The new filing also names Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) as a plaintiff, arguing that he was harmed as a consumer of misleading broadcast news.

Trump’s lawsuit coincides with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) decision to reopen a news distortion complaint against CBS, initially dismissed in January but revived by new FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

“CBS played the same question on two different programs and clearly the words of the answers were very different,” Carr said in a Fox News interview. “Was it edited for clarity and length—which would be fine—or are there other reasons?” 

Democrat FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez called the move a retaliatory effort to intimidate the media.

The Epoch Times has reached out to CBS and Paramount with requests for comment on the amended complaint.