Brace yourself, Mr. President.
60 Minutes plans to enrage Donald Trump Sunday with an episode bashing his intimidation efforts—despite being in a legal battle with the president themselves.
“On the campaign trail, President Trump vowed to wield the power of the presidency to go after his perceived enemies,” the segment’s description reads. “Now in the White House, Trump is using executive orders to target some of the biggest law firms in the country that he accuses of ‘weaponizing’ the justice system against him.”
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The drama between Donald Trump and CBS has heated up in recent weeks after the show’s executive producer, Bill Owens, abruptly quit after 37 years, accusing CBS executives of interfering with the program and pandering to Trump amid his $20 billion lawsuit.
Trump sued 60 Minutes before his election win, slamming the show for editing an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The president, who alleged that the program modified Harris’ clip to make her sound better, was also offered an interview but refused to go once he found out it would be fact-checked.
Since taking office, Trump has dedicated a large part of his presidency to demonizing the press and attacking the so-called “fake news.”
On Wednesday, he escalated his assaults on 60 Minutes.
“The case we have against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount is a true WINNER,” he wrote on Truth Social. “They cheated and defrauded the American People at levels never seen before in the Political Arena.”
But now, 60 Minutes is biting back by roasting the president with a segment dedicated to calling out the president’s harsh measures against law firms that have been targeted with executive orders by second the Trump administration.
Correspondent Scott Pelley, who is reporting the story, last week noted the departure of Owens and called out CBS’ corporate parent, Paramount Global.
“Bill made sure they were accurate and fair,” he told viewers. “He was tough that way, but our parent company Paramount is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”
After his resignation, Owens said that the show’s independence was a “slippery slope” and added that he was “stepping aside so the show can move forward.”
In a memo he told staff that “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ’60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”
MAGA reveled in the news that Owens quit, with Trump’s chief mouthpiece and White House Communications Director Steven Cheung writing on X that “Karma is a b----,” calling Owens a “liar and a fraud.”
CBS and Trump’s settlement discussions have taken place as Paramount Global seeks the president’s approval of its merger with Skydance, an American media production company.
