CBS just paid Donald Trump $16 million because they got caught manipulating a Kamala Harris interview.
So when Trump agreed to sit down with 60 Minutes again Sunday night, Norah O'Donnell had a choice to make.
She made the wrong one – and Trump made sure the whole country watched her regret it.
CBS Handed the Shooter a National Platform Hours After the Shooting
Hours after a gunman opened fire at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, O'Donnell sat across from the President of the United States and read aloud from the alleged shooter's manifesto.
https://twitter.com/RyanSaavedra/status/2048571729489150194?s=20
The suspect – 31-year-old Cole Allen of Torrance, California – had reportedly prepared a document filled with anti-Trump rhetoric, including language associating Trump with accusations of rape and pedophilia.
O'Donnell read the passages and asked Trump to react.
He did.
"Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you're horrible people," Trump said.
"Horrible people."
Then he looked straight at her and said what every person watching was thinking.
"You should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things," he said.
Sixteen Million Dollars Bought CBS Absolutely Nothing
O'Donnell tried to interrupt – claiming she was simply quoting the alleged gunman's own words.
https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/2048543595901436252?s=20
Trump wasn't having it.
"You're a disgrace," he said. "But go ahead. Let's finish the interview."
Trump didn't storm off. He didn't get rattled.
He called her disgraceful, on her own show, and then calmly offered to keep going.
That's not anger.
That's dominance.
This is the same network that paid Trump $16 million after he sued over an edited Kamala Harris interview that made her look so bad CBS apparently couldn't air it straight.
Bari Weiss came in as editor-in-chief of CBS News after that settlement.
Trump acknowledged it Sunday night – telling O'Donnell he'd heard Weiss was a "great person."
Then he lit her anchor on fire anyway.
Which tells you exactly what $16 million and a new boss changed at CBS: nothing.
https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/2048541082955235528?s=20
O'Donnell's first instinct, with a shooting still fresh and the President sitting three feet away, was to read a manifesto calling him a rapist and a pedophile.
The institutional reflex to weaponize anti-Trump content – no matter the moment, no matter the context – is baked into what CBS is.
Trump told 60 Minutes: "It's not so much the press. It's the press plus the Democrats because they're almost one and the same."
Sunday night, Norah O'Donnell proved his point for him.
He told her she was disgraceful.
He was right.
Sources:
- Lindsay Kornick, "Trump calls '60 Minutes' host 'disgraceful' for reading WHCD suspect's alleged manifesto on air," Fox News, April 26, 2026.
