Trump posts “60 Minutes” interview
President Donald Trump made good Thursday on a threat to post unfiltered footage from a “60 Minutes” interview he taped earlier this week with anchor Lesley Stahl — an interview that Trump abruptly cut short, complaining that Stahl was “negative” and biased.
In posting the 38- minute clip on Facebook, Trump urged viewers to “look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS.” But the footage shows Stahl, a “60 Minutes” correspondent since 1991, calmly and firmly asking the president about the coronavirus and other topics as Trump grows increasingly irritated.
At the start of the footage on Facebook, the president suggests that Stahl was not being “fair,” before proceeding to complain about her inquiries on the economy and the rising numbers of coronavirus cases in more than 40 states.
“You brought up a lot of questions that were inappropriately brought up, right from the beginning,” Trump says.
“Don’t you think you should be accountable to the American people?” Stahl replies.
The interview is scheduled to air on Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes,” which will also feature an interview with Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. CBS News called the president’s pre- emption “unprecedented.”
This “will not deter ‘ 60 Minutes’ from providing its full, fair and contextual reporting, which presidents have participated in for decades,” the network said in a statement, noting that the White House’s recording of the interview had been intended “for archival purposes only.”
Stahl, who had interviewed Trump two other times since he won the presidency, sounds taken aback after the president stands up and ends the interview prematurely, telling his aides, “That’s enough. Let’s go. Let’s go.” In an exchange taped immediately afterward, Stahl asks Vice President Mike Pence,
“So what just happened with the president?”
“Lesley, uh, President Trump is a man who speaks his mind,” Pence replies. “I think it’s one of the great strengths that he’s had as president.”
Stahl’s interview with Pence — also posted online by the White House — grows tense as she presses him on why he is evading some of her questions.
“This was not a rally, this was not just a campaign speech to the public — this was supposed to be an interview, and the same with the president,” Stahl says.
Pence objects, claiming that he did respond.
In the interview, Trump tells Stahl that he wants the Supreme Court to abolish the Affordable Care Act, saying: “I hope that they end it; it’ll be so good if they end it.” When Stahl pointed out that he has not shown a plan publicly, Trump falsely claimed that he had.
Trump also said, falsely, that he had never said a version of “lock her up” about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
In posting the footage Thursday, Trump referred to the interview as a “vicious attempted ‘ takeout’ ” by Stahl and told his Twitter followers: “Watch her constant interruptions & anger. Compare my full, flowing and ‘ magnificently brilliant’ answers to their ‘ Q’s’.”