CBS cuts Trump’s corruption outburst from ‘60 Minutes’ interview

US President Donald Trump’s angry response to cryptocurrency-related corruption questions at the end of his "60 Minutes" interview with CBS was cut from the show’s TV and online edits.

CBS aired the exclusive interview with Trump on Sunday, but the network omitted a heated segment in which Trump was pressed on his decision to pardon a cryptocurrency billionaire.

The televised broadcast ran for 28 minutes, while a longer 73-minute version was uploaded online, yet neither included Trump’s full response to questions about his pardons.

Host Norah O’Donnell specifically questioned Trump about Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who had received a presidential pardon just a month earlier.

“I don’t know who he is,” Trump said, dismissing the issue. “I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that, and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”

O’Donnell pointed out that the Trump family had recently launched a cryptocurrency venture with the Witkoff family, called World Liberty Financial.

Following Zhao’s pardon, Binance reportedly entered into a $2 billion deal with the Trump-linked enterprise.

She then asked whether he was “concerned about the appearance of corruption.” Trump’s complete reply was not included in the released videos but appeared in CBS’s official transcript.

“I can’t say, because, I can’t say, I’m not concerned. I don’t, I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it. You just came to me and you said, ‘Can I ask another question?’ And I said, yeah. This is the question …,” Trump responded, sidestepping the inquiry and redirecting attention to cryptocurrency.

“We’re No. 1 in crypto in the whole world,” Trump said, adding, “Other people wanna be. They’re fighting like hell to be. But we’re No. 1 in crypto because I’m the president.… We are No. 1 in crypto, and that’s the only thing I care about. I don’t want China or anybody else to take it away. It’s a massive industry.”

The omission of the segment from all publicly available versions has drawn attention, particularly given that CBS’s parent company, Paramount, reached a $16 million settlement with Trump in July after he sued over what he described as a “deceptively edited” interview with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.

The network’s decision also comes amid reports of an internal right-wing shift at Paramount following its acquisition by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison.

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In another portion of the "60 Minutes" interview, also absent from both the televised and online editions, Trump appeared to reference this new association, further fueling speculation about editorial interference.

“And actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta [lot of] money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you,” he said.

“But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took [Harris’s] answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”

As part of the settlement, Paramount was not required to issue an apology to Trump but agreed to introduce a new policy.

The company committed that, going forward, "60 Minutes" will publish full transcripts of interviews with eligible US presidential candidates after broadcast, though it retained the right to make redactions under the pretext of legal and national security reasons.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk