US President Donald Trump has appeared on the CBS News programme 60 Minutes just months after he won a $16m settlement from the broadcaster for alleged “deceptive editing”.
In the interview with CBS host Norah O’Donnell, which was filmed last Friday at his Mar-a-Lago residence and aired on Sunday, Trump touched on several topics, including the ongoing government shutdown, his administration’s unprecedented crackdowns on undocumented migrants, the US’s decision to restart nuclear testing, and the trade war with China.
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Trump, who regularly appears on Fox News, a right-wing media outlet, has an uneasy relationship with CBS, which is considered centrist.
In October 2020, the president walked out of a 60 Minutes interview in the lead-up to the 2020 election he lost, claiming that the host, Lesley Stahl, was “biased”.
Here are some key takeaways from the interview:
The interview took place one year to the day after Trump sued CBS
The president’s lawyers sued CBS owner Paramount in October 2024 for “mental anguish” over a pre-election interview with rival candidate Kamala Harris that Trump claimed had been deceptively edited to favour Democrats and thus affected his campaign.
CBS had aired two different versions of an answer Harris gave to a question on Israel’s war on Gaza, posed by host Bill Whitaker. One version aired on 60 Minutes while the other appeared on the programme Face the Nation.
Asked whether Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, listened to US advice, Harris answered: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States – to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
In an alternative edit, featured in earlier pre-broadcast promotions, Harris had given a longer, more rambling response that did not sound as concise.
The network argued the answer was edited differently for the two shows due to time restrictions, but Trump’s team claimed CBS “distorted” its broadcasts and “helped” Harris, thereby affecting his campaign. Trump asked for an initial $10bn in damages before upping it to $20bn in February 2025.
Paramount, in July 2025, chose to settle with Trump’s team to the tune of $16m in the form of a donation to a planned Trump presidential library. That move angered journalist unions and rights groups, which argued it set a bad precedent for press freedom.
Paramount executives said the company would not apologise for the editing of its programmes, but had decided to settle to put the matter to rest.
The company was at the time trying to secure federal approval from Trump’s government for a proposed merger with Skydance, owned by Trump ally Larry Ellison. The Federal Communications Commission has since approved the merger that gives Ellison’s Skydance controlling rights.
On October 19, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to the Middle East, were interviewed on 60 Minutes regarding the Israel-Gaza war.
He solved rare-earth metals issue with China
After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last Thursday, Trump praised his counterpart as a “strong man, a very powerful leader” and said their relationship was on an even keel despite the trade war. However, he blamed China for “ripping off” the US through its dominance of crucial rare earth materials.
Trump told 60 Minutes he had cut a favourable trade agreement with China and that “we got – no rare-earth threat. That’s gone, completely gone”, referring to Chinese export restrictions on critical rare-earth metals needed to manufacture a wide range of items including defence equipment, smartphones and electric vehicles.
However, Beijing actually only said it would delay introducing export controls for five rare-earth metals it announced in October, and did not mention restrictions on a further seven it announced in April this year. Those restrictions remain in place.
Xi ‘knows what will happen’ if China attacks Taiwan
Trump said President Xi did not say anything about whether Beijing planned to attack autonomous Taiwan.
However, he referred to past assurances from Xi, saying: “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘We would never do anything while President Trump is president’, because they know the consequences.”
Asked whether he would order US forces to action if China moved militarily on Taiwan, Trump demurred, saying: “You’ll find out if it happens, and he understands the answer to that … I can’t give away my secrets. The other side knows.”
There are mounting fears in the US that China could attack Taiwan. Washington’s stance of “strategic ambiguity” has always kept observers speculating about whether the US would defend Taiwan against Beijing. Ahead of the last elections, Trump said Taiwan should “pay” for protection.
He doesn’t know who the crypto boss he pardoned is
When asked why he pardoned cryptocurrency multibillionaire and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao last month, Trump said: “I don’t know who he is.”
The president said he had never met Zhao, but had been told he was the victim of a “witch hunt” by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Zhao pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering in connection with child sex abuse and “terrorism” on his crypto platform in 2023. He served four mo
