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Left: President-elect Donald Trump on “Meet the Press” Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024 (NBC News/YouTube). Right: Vice President Kamala Harris interviewed on “60 Minutes” in a video posted Oct. 7, 2024 (60 Minutes/YouTube).
President Donald Trump has amended a lawsuit that he filed against CBS News last year over the network’s “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, adding a new claim of “unfair competition” and a Texas congressman as a co-plaintiff, while also doubling the amount that he believes he is owed — from $10 billion to $20 billion.
Trump is now joined by Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Republican from Amarillo who previously served as Trump’s White House doctor, in suing CBS over footage from the October “60 Minutes” interview that the president’s legal team claims was deceptively “doctored” in an attempt to “confuse, deceive, and mislead the public” and “tip the scales” in favor of Democrats ahead of the 2024 election.
Trump’s allegations stem from two clips of Harris answering a question about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East. His suit claims the network edited the vice president’s response to make her more appealing to voters and to avoid “one of Harris’ most embarrassing weaknesses,” which it claims was “her habit of uttering ‘word salads’ — i.e., jumbles of exceptionally incoherent speech that drew disapproval even from dyed-in-the-wool Democratic commentators.” The suit says CBS was “looking to profit from manufactured enthusiasm for Harris” by using allegedly “doctored” footage, which they claim was an “unethical and unlawful” attempt to “sabotage a Republican presidential candidate.”
Trump’s amended complaint, which was filed Friday, demands that CBS and Paramount Global — the network’s parent company — cough up $20 billion for the Harris interview, which he now calls “an act of unfair competition” and “unfair advantage” under the federal Lanham Act, in addition to unlawful “election and voter interference,” as alleged in his original complaint. Trump is also claiming that CBS falsely advertised the interview with a preview for it during an episode of “Face the Nation.”
“Defendants’ deceptive advertising and ‘slice-and-dice’ manipulation of the Interview was also an act of unfair competition against President Trump, a significant owner of shares in publicly traded company Trump Media & Technology Group Corp,” the amended complaint says. “TMTG owns President Trump’s wildly popular social media platform Truth Social, in which President Trump owns a substantial share, and which is one of Defendants’ competitors in the broadcast, online, and digital media content creation spaces.”
Trump’s amended complaint claims “consumers who purchased or otherwise acquired Defendants’ broadcast or digital content services to watch the Election Special and other Paramount or CBS content — including Plaintiffs — were confused, deceived, and misled by the Preview and Defendants’ other advertising” of the Harris interview.
Specifically, Trump’s complaint says an exchange between the former vice president and “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker about the U.S. government having “sway” over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was edited to make Harris appear more “coherent, decisive, and apparently in favor of ending Israel’s war of self-defense against Hamas terrorists.”
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According to the complaint, Harris provided a “rambling one-minute answer to Whitaker’s question about whether the United States has ‘sway’ over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” The preview that aired on “Face the Nation,” according to the complaint, concluded with a follow-up assertion from Whitaker to Harris: “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening,” per Trump’s team.
“Harris replied incoherently and indecisively to Whitaker without taking a clear position on Israel’s war of self-defense against Hamas terrorists,” the complaint says.
When the “60 Minutes” interview aired, “Whitaker made the same assertion about Prime Minister Netanyahu not listening,” the complaint alleges, but this time Harris’s reply was “coherent” and “decisive,” according to Trump’s lawyers.
“Millions of Americans, including President Trump, Representative Jackson, and other citizens of Texas, were deceived and misled by the astonishing contrast between the two versions of Harris’s Reply to Whitaker’s assertion about Prime Minister Netanyahu,” the complaint says.
Trump’s suit is being hurled in the Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division, where U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — a Trump appointee — is the lone federal judge. Trump’s lawyers claim editing the Harris interview ultimately violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act (DTPA), while critics believe Trump was simply “judge shopping” when choosing the Lone Star State, as he lives in Florida and CBS is based in New York. CBS had motioned to dismiss the Trump lawsuit on account of this in prior court filings. Trump added Rep. Jackson in response.
“Representative Jackson is a citizen of the United States and the State of Texas and represents Texas’s 13th Congressional District in the House of Representatives,” Trump’s amended complaint says. “As alleged further herein, Representative Jackson is a consumer of broadcast and digital news media content in this State, District, and Division, including the broadcast and digital news media content from Defendants at issue in this action, and he has thus been injured by Defendants’ conduct alleged herein.”
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CBS has argued in court filings that both the Lanham Act and Texas statute only govern commercial speech and not political or editorial speech. In a Dec. 6 motion to dismiss, the network’s lawyers noted how Trump’s original complaint “over and over admits that it challenges editorial decision-making, not commercial speech or advertising.” The network pointed to the complaint’s description of “Face the Nation” as a “morning news show,” referring repeatedly to “news distortion” and alleging that CBS engaged in “deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news” or “rigging or slanting [of] the news,” according to the CBS motion.
“There can be no serious argument that President Trump’s claim arises out of commercial speech, as required for a viable DTPA claim,” the document said. “For this reason alone, the action fails.”
Attempts by Law&Crime to reach Trump and CBS lawyers for comment on Sunday were unsuccessful.