CNN
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President Donald Trump has a “hope” for his Federal Communications Commission: that the agency will punish CBS for airing “60 Minutes” reports he doesn’t like.
Apparently angered by Sunday night’s “60 Minutes” telecast, Trump wrote on Truth Social about his ongoing legal battle with CBS and its parent company, Paramount Global, which is awaiting FCC approval to merge with Skydance Media.
Trump name-checked the man he promoted to chair the FCC, Brendan Carr, whom he called “Highly Respected.” He said hopefully Carr “will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior.”
There is no evidence of illegal behavior by CBS.
And there is relatively little that Carr can do to impose “punishment,” though the FCC’s delay in approving Paramount’s merger has already created uncertainty at the company.
Sunday night’s post is the latest example of Trump encouraging his appointees to apply government pressure against his critics. In recent months, Carr has flaunted his MAGA credentials and launched FCC investigations of several media outlets Trump has derided, including ABC and NBC. Carr was photographed last week wearing a gold pin with a silhouette of Trump’s head.
Carr did not respond to CNN’s request for comment about Trump’s Truth Social post.
On Sunday night, he depicted “60 Minutes,” the most-watched newsmagazine in the country, in similar terms, writing, “They are not a ‘News Show,’ but a dishonest Political Operative simply disguised as ‘News,’ and must be responsible for what they have done, and are doing.”
He also wrote that CBS “should lose their license” after the network aired two stories on Sunday – one about Ukraine and another about Greenland. The CBS network is not licensed by the FCC, but local stations owned by CBS are. During the 2024 campaign, Trump said many times that networks he disliked should be stripped of their licenses.
He has repeated the call twice since taking office, and CBS has been the target both times.
Trump has been both a viewer and a critic of “60 Minutes” for years. He declined the program’s traditional pre-election interview request last fall, and when his opponent Kamala Harris went ahead and appeared on “60,” he saw an opportunity.
Trump and his media allies castigated “60 Minutes” for airing one part of Harris’s answer to a question on one day and the other part of her answer on another day.
CBS said it had merely edited her answer for time, in accordance with TV news standards, but Trump recast the controversy as a conspiracy, alleging that the network was colluding to help Harris win the election.
Trump filed a lawsuit in Texas accusing CBS of violating the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a consumer protection law. It looked more like a political PR stunt than a legitimate case, and numerous First Amendment attorneys said the suit was frivolous.
But after Trump won the election, some Paramount officials began trying to settle the case, over the strenuous objections of “60 Minutes” journalists.
Even after CBS handed over the raw transcript and tapes of the interview, which proved that it engaged in normal editing, Carr kept the inquiry open and invited the public to comment.
A settlement could look like a payoff to Trump in exchange for merger approval, but The New York Times recently reported that some at Paramount think its “broader corporate interests are not served by fighting a protracted legal battle” with a vengeful president.
To date, no settlement has materialized and CBS continues to battle Trump in court.
“60 Minutes,” meanwhile, has stayed true to its mission, producing interviews and investigations on Sunday nights. The program has featured stories about the impacts of Trump’s policies “almost every week,” as Trump accurately though angrily noted on Truth Social. He claimed the segments have been “derogatory and defamatory.”
Political scientist Brendan Nyhan, co-founder of Bright Line Watch, which monitors threats to American democracy, translated Trump’s Truth Social post this way: “The president openly calls for his loyalist apparatchik at the FCC to use state power to punish media for critical coverage.”
Journalists at CBS have certainly felt the steadily building pressure. While accepting a First Amendment Award at an industry ceremony last month, “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl said she was especially honored to receive the award at a time when “our precious First Amendment feels vulnerable and when my precious 60 Minutes is fighting, quite frankly, for our life.”
“I am so proud,” Stahl said, that “60 Minutes” is “standing up and fighting for what is right.”