President Trump will sit down with CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell Sunday for his first interview with the network since suing and later settling with its parent company over a 2024 “60 Minutes” segment featuring then–Vice President Kamala Harris.
The interview, which airs Sunday on “60 Minutes,” was filmed Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to the news site Semafor — and comes just weeks after Bari Weiss took the helm of the network.
Earlier this month, Semafor was first to report that Trump was in talks on a possible interview with “60 Minutes,” the long-running television newsmagazine.
According to CBS, O’Donnell’s conversation with the president spanned a wide range of topics, including his recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, US relations with Venezuela and Israel, the ongoing government shutdown and the administration’s new immigration and National Guard policies.
The network posted a preview story on its websites showing O’Donnell sitting across from Trump at his estate on Friday.
The high-profile sitdown comes just months after Paramount paid Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit alleging the Harris interview was deceptively edited to benefit his opponent during the 2024 campaign.
Though the settlement included no apology or admission of wrongdoing, it paved the way for a truce between the White House and CBS News.
Earlier this year, CBS News pledged to publish the full transcripts of future presidential interviews and air unedited versions of major political sitdowns on programs like “Face the Nation” and “60 Minutes.”
For Trump, the interview offers an opportunity to re-engage with a major broadcast network he has long derided as part of the “fake news media.”
His relationship with CBS appears to be warming under the network’s new ownership.
During a recent conversation aboard Air Force One, Trump praised Paramount CEO David Ellison and his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, calling them “great people” who “understand fairness.”
The interview will air during a period of turbulence and upheaval at the Tiffany Network’s news division.
The decision to feature Trump on “60 Minutes” is just the latest indication that CBS News is eager to turn the page under the leadership of Weiss, who became editor-in-chief in October following Paramount’s acquisition by Skydance Media.
Weiss, a former opinion editor for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times who founded the Free Press, has promised to steer the network toward a more independent, “trust-first” editorial approach.
Her tenure has already drawn both praise and controversy amid layoffs and internal restructuring.
CBS has also made a series of editorial policy changes in the wake of its settlement with Trump.
The interview will air during a period of turbulence and upheaval at the Tiffany Network’s news division.
CBS News has laid off roughly 100 employees — including several high-profile correspondents and anchors — as part of a broader cost-cutting effort under its new parent company, Paramount Skydance.
The cuts affected on-air, production, and digital staff, and coincided with the cancellation of two streaming shows, a major overhaul of “CBS Saturday Morning” and the disbanding of the network’s race and culture unit.
Among those let go were Michelle Miller, Dana Jacobson, Lisa Ling, Debora Patta, Janet Shamlian, Nancy Chen and Nikki Battiste — all women, with half reportedly women of color.
The layoffs have sparked internal frustration and allegations of discrimination after at least one former producer claimed that people of color were disproportionately targeted while white colleagues were reassigned instead.
The reductions come amid sweeping restructuring following Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, which aims to trim about $2 billion in operating costs and reduce roughly 10% of the company’s global workforce.
Read the full article here













