Trump is suing CBS News for $10 billion over an interview with Kamala Harris

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Donald Trump is suing CBS News for $10 billion, claiming the network deceptively edited an interview with his rival Kamala Harris to illegally influence the 2024 presidential election.

The lawsuitfiled in Texas, accuse CBS of “biased and illegal election practices and voter interference through malicious, deceptive and material distortion of news intended to … confuse, deceive and mislead the public” and “attempt to tip the scales” in favor of the Democratic candidate.

His legal team filed the suit in federal court in Amarillo, where the case is expected to land before a judge he has appointed. Any appeal of a ruling in the case will go to a Louisiana-based appeals court dominated by conservative justices who have routinely sided with Republican-backed legal challenges.

A case by Trump — who lives in Florida and is suing a New York-based company incorporated in Delaware — is likely to be assigned to conservative District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, whom Trump nominated to the court. In particular, Judge Kacsmaryk reinstated Trump’s so-called “remain in Mexico” program and decided to strip the government of approval of a widely used abortion drug. Both decisions were rejected by the Supreme Court.

Trump has demanded a jury trial and wants to be awarded $10 billion in damages.

The lawsuit spends several paragraphs on political attacks, calling President Joe Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign “an unprecedented and anti-democratic political coup” and accusing CBS and other media outlets of going “into overdrive to get Kamala elected.” The document refers to Harris only by her first name.

Trump’s lawyers argue that the news media has “falsely attempted to recast her as the ‘joy’ candidate, whitewashed her long record of political failures and painted over her repeated, disqualifying falsifications, including ‘word salad’ and “messages of unusually disjointed speech that have drawn disapproval even with dyed-in-the-wool Democratic commentators.

Thursday’s far-fetched claims, filed just six days before Election Day, follow Trump’s forced attacks, baselessly alleging the network did something “illegal” and getting her answers.

He has also repeatedly threatened to revoke CBS’s broadcast license, along with other television networks that have aired critical coverage of his administration and campaign.

Trump has previously launched unsuccessful lawsuits against CNN and New York Times. A judge this year ruled that the former president owes the newspaper and three reporters nearly $400,000 for their legal fees after his failed lawsuit against them.

The Republican presidential candidate also backed out of a chance to appear 60 minutes themselves. Anchor Scott Pelley told viewers during the Harris broadcast that Trump’s campaign “complained that we wanted to fact-check the interview.”

“We fact-check every story,” Pelley said.

The network has since refuted Trump’s “false” accusationsand a lawyer for the network said there is “no legal basis” for a legal challenge following a legal threat by Trump’s team to release unredacted transcripts.

The question is how 60 minutes aired Harris’ response to a question from host Bill Whitaker about whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is listening to the United States.

A preview of the interview that aired on CBS’s Face the Nation shows her responding by defending America’s influence while 60 minutes the broadcast includes a response that “we will not stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”

CBS has said the network aired her entire response; a first half aired in the Sunday program and the second half aired in the Monday broadcast as two parts of the same answer to the same question.

“Same question. Same answer. But a different part of the answer,” the network said in a statement earlier this month.

“When we edit any interview, whether it’s a politician, an athlete or a movie star, we strive to be clear, precise and to the point,” the statement said. “That part of her answer to 60 minutes was more concise, allowing time for other topics in a sprawling 21-minute segment.”