Copyright The Boston Globe
Trump’s appearance on the show follows a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll that found a majority of Americans say he has gone too far in exercising the powers of his office, and that while 41 percent say they approve of the job he’s doing, 59 percent disapprove. It also comes after Paramount, CBS’s then-owner, paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit that Trump filed during the 2024 presidential election. Trump alleged that his electoral chances were harmed after the network aired two versions of an answer given by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on “60 Minutes” regarding the Middle East. Here are some key moments from the interview. Sections of the longer cut of the interview were removed. The program eliminated lengthy portions of a tense exchange about Trump’s decision to pardon Zhao, a crypto billionaire whose company helped facilitate a massive deal for Trump’s family’s company, World Liberty Financial. O’Donnell asked about the “appearance for pay-for-play.” Part of Trump’s answer was included in the aired interview, but O’Donnell’s follow-ups and Trump’s answers, in which he scolds O’Donnell for the question, were not. The news program also cut Trump bragging about securing a hefty settlement from “60 Minutes” former parent company Paramount after a lawsuit in which he alleged that the program had deceptively edited an interview with Harris to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party.” “Actually ‘60 Minutes’ paid me a lot of money. And you don’t have to put this on because I don’t want to embarrass you,” Trump said, according to the transcript. He added words of praise for CBS’s new editor in chief, Bari Weiss. “I think you have a great new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise is a great, from what I know,” Trump said. These comments were also removed from the video. CBS did not respond to a request for comment about the edited version of the interview. As the United States masses warships and fighter jets off Venezuela’s coast, Trump would not say whether the United States will carry out land strikes on the country but answered in the affirmative when O’Donnell asked whether Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s days as president were “numbered.” Asked if the United States was going to war with Venezuela, Trump told O’Donnell: “I doubt it. I don’t think so.” But asked later if the United States would carry out land strikes, he said: “I’m not saying it’s true or untrue. … I don’t talk to a reporter about whether or not I’m going to strike.” In the interview, Trump accused Venezuela of dumping “hundreds of thousands of people into our country” and said the United States was launching strikes on boats in Caribbean waters because the vessels carry drugs. Trump has also accused Maduro of being the head of a drug trafficking network, a claim Maduro denies. In the last two months, the United States has carried out several fatal strikes against vessels the administration alleges were being run by “narcoterrorists.” Last month, Trump said he was considering military strikes against land-based targets in Venezuela, where the government is urging civilians to prepare for the worst. More recently, though, Trump said such strikes were not being contemplated. O’Donnell noted that illegal crossings at the southern US border were at a 55-year low but questioned whether raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement had gone too far. She mentioned scenes of agents tackling a young mother, the use of tear gas in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and car windows being smashed during raids. Trump defended the operations, saying, “I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama.” Asked whether he was “OK” with ICE’s tactics, he said, “Yeah, you have to get the people out.” He suggested that the people targeted in raids were violent criminals and individuals with mental health conditions, describing them as “murderers,” “killers,” or “from insane asylums.” Asked if the administration intends to deport people without criminal records, Trump said that the policy is to deport those who come into the country illegally. With the current government shutdown closing in on a record length, Trump blamed Democrats for the impasse, which has seen more than 750,000 government workers go unpaid for a full month and generated direct consequences for millions of Americans who rely on federal food stamps or government-funded health and education programs. Trump said he would not be “extorted” by Democrats who want to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans before they agree to reopen the government. Republicans say they won’t negotiate on health care until the government has reopened. Trump told O’Donnell his plan to end the shutdown is to tell Democrats to vote to end it. Republicans, he said, are voting “almost unanimously” to reopen the government. “We’ll get it solved,” Trump said. “Eventually, they’re going to have to vote.” If Democrats don’t vote, then the “nuclear option” would be to abolish the filibuster, Trump said. Republican congressional leaders have not been eager to embrace that idea. O’Donnell asked Trump about his pardon last month of Zhao, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering in connection with his crypto exchange platform, Binance. At the time, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said Binance’s “willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform.” Zhao also served four months in federal prison. Asked about the pardon, Trump said: “I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. And what I want to do is see crypto, [because] if we don’t do it it’s going to go to China.”
