A Pouty Trump Cancels ’60 Minutes’ Interview, Calls for CBS to Lose Broadcast License

Donald Trump, the same Republican presidential candidate who declared he’d be a “dictator for one day,” said that CBS News should lose a broadcasting license after its 60 Minutes program interviewed his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite the fact that the federal government does not issue licenses for television networks like CBS, Trump raged on Truth Social over an edited version of an exchange between Harris and correspondent Bill Whitaker about Israel that aired on Monday. Interviews are often shortened in order to fit the time allotted for the broadcast and this is standard practice for networks with scheduled programs.

“Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better,” Trump claimed in a Truth Social post on Thursday morning. In another lamentation, posted to X, Trump accused CBS of creating “the Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History” and said the network “should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder.”

He continued to fixate on Harris’ CBS interview during a speech in Detroit on Thursday afternoon, and said it would “go down as the single biggest scandal in broadcast history.”

In response to Trump’s repeated calls to revoke the network’s license for his own political gain, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel released a statement rebuking the former president’s attacks as “threats against free speech.”

“As I’ve said before, the First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy,” said Rosenworcel. “The FCC does not and will not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.”

Trump’s rantings arrive after he backed out of a planned 60 Minutes interview earlier this week. CBS said he refused to do the scheduled interview because he would be fact-checked, which his campaign team called “unprecedented,” and because Trump claimed the network owes him an apology for an interview Leslie Stahl conducted in 2020. As CBS stated, “60 Minutes fact checks every story it broadcasts.”

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After Harris dominated Trump in a debate in September, the former president has refused a rematch. CBS noted that the Monday night election special “may have been the last opportunity between now and Election Day for a national audience to hear from both candidates on a range of issues.”

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The vice president, meanwhile, has continued to appear for scheduled interviews, including with radio host Howard Stern, The View, and Stephen Colbert on The Late Show. In a series of unhinged temper tantrums during rally appearances in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Trump railed against Stern and The View host Whoopi Goldberg for interviewing his opponent. 

“I do believe that this is an election that is about strength versus weakness,” Harris said when speaking to Stern on Tuesday. “And weakness,” she continued, “as projected by someone who puts himself in front of the American people and does not have the strength to stand in defense of their needs, their dreams, their desires.”