Former Vice President Kamala Harris and her allies in the mainstream media have repeatedly been accused of election interference in the 2024 election by President Donald Trump.
Trump has pointed to a heavily edited interview released by CBS News where the network changed Harris’ “word salad” responses to help her win voter support.
And on Wednesday, Harris and her allies got some very bad news — the public now had access to the truth.
Specifically, the Federal Communications Commission released the complete transcript of CBS News’ controversial October 2024 interview with Kamala Harris on Wednesday.
The extensive amount of edits are shocking.
The transcript shows CBS aired different portions of Harris’s answer about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu across two broadcasts, for example. The network faces an FCC investigation over possible violations of “news distortion” rules and a $10 billion lawsuit from Donald Trump over their alleged election interference.
“CBS’s conduct is hard to explain,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told Fox News Digital. “On the one hand, CBS immediately released the unredacted transcript of a recent interview with Vice President [J.D.] Vance. Yet for months they refused to release the one with Vice President Harris.”
The network aired a 140-word response from Harris in its “Face the Nation” preview, then broadcast a different 20-word segment from the same answer on “60 Minutes” the following night.
In the full transcript, Harris’s complete answer about Netanyahu reads:
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’ campaign was repeatedly criticized for hiding their candidate from hard hitting interviews, following former President Joe Biden’s avoidance of the media for almost all four years he was in office.
CBS News defended its editing practices in a statement: “In reporting the news, journalists regularly edit interviews – for time, space or clarity. In making these edits, 60 Minutes is always guided by the truth and what we believe will be most informative to the viewing public.”
Take a look at just some of the edits —
BREAKING: Donald Trump sues CBS News for $10 billion for "deceptively doctoring" Kamala Harris' 60-Minutes interview.
Trump is directly accusing CBS of election interference to help Harris, according to Fox News.
"CBS’ partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter… pic.twitter.com/1dEo0Y9ZbX
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 31, 2024
The FCC will hold public hearings on March 7 following a complaint by the Center for American Rights over the network’s editing decisions.
The investigation could affect regulatory approval of Paramount’s pending $8 billion merger with Skydance, scheduled to close next month.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges CBS News attempted to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party as the heated 2024 Presidential Election approaches its conclusion.”
The FCC has scheduled a reply period following the hearings for March 24. The agency issues eight-year licenses to individual broadcast stations but not networks.