Politics

60 Minutes is under new management and things are getting stupid faster than you might expect. Last night’s episode featured President Trump, which is currently being described as “nuts.” There are all sorts of crazy moments to call out, but let’s start with the recursively meta nonsense.

60 Minutes edited out a segment where Donald Trump tells them to edit out a segment in which he brags about getting CBS to pay him because of them editing out part of an answer by Kamala Harris, and he notes that CBS clearly did the wrong thing in editing Harris in the same fucking sentence he tells them to edit out what he’s saying.

It is so fucking stupid.

As you’ll no doubt recall, last year, Trump sued CBS over the show. Right before last year’s election, 60 Minutes had interviewed Kamala Harris. As every such news show does, it had edited the interview down to make it fit into the TV time slot. MAGA culture warriors, desperate for anything to culture war about, started screaming that 60 Minutes had edited Harris to sound more coherent. This was nonsense.

What had happened was that in one question, Harris had given a long answer. CBS broadcast part of the answer on 60 Minutes. But it had broadcast a different part of that answer during the CBS Sunday morning show, Face the Nation. This … happens all the time. The full answer was too long. They edited it down to a shorter bit. The two different broadcasts chose different parts. That’s basic, fundamental, editorial discretion.

Given how often Trump is edited to make him sound more coherent, he should appreciate this. But Trump will never, ever care about how much leeway he is given and will always seek to gain whatever advantage he can. So he sued, claiming it was “election interference,” which it wasn’t. And even if it was (it wasn’t) he still won the election.