Former President of the US, Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against CBS over a recent 60 Minutes interview featuring Vice President Kamala Harris, alleging defamation and bias.
As per CNN, Trump demanded $10 billion for sabotaging his integrity in a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
However, First Amendment attorneys swiftly denounced this law and labelled it “frivolous and dangerous.”
In the complaint filed in US District Court in the Northern District of Texas, Trump’s legal counsel claimed the program was “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference” intended to “mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales” of the presidential election in her favour.
It is also mentioned in the lawsuit, Trump asked for “publicly release the full, unedited transcript of the [interview].”
As per the court filing, “To paper over Kamala’s ‘word salad’ weakness, CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news.”
The former US president's counsel maintained that “CBS’s misconduct was unconscionable because it amounts to a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election.”
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for CBS said, “The Interview was not doctored; and 60 MINUTES did not hide any part of the Vice President’s answer to the question at issue. 60 MINUTES fairly presented the Interview to inform the viewing audience, and not to mislead it. The lawsuit Trump has brought today against CBS is completely without merit and we will vigorously defend against it.”
The lawsuit was also criticized by prominent First Amendment attorneys, saying, “This is a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media. The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear: the First Amendment leaves it to journalists – and not the courts, the government or candidates for office – to decide how to report the news.”
