Washington [US] : Former U.S. President Donald Trump has reignited his feud with the television industry, targeting the Emmy-nominated CBS program ’60 Minutes’ for its segment featuring Vice President Kamala Harris, which has been nominated for Outstanding Edited Interview at the upcoming News and Documentary Emmy Awards.
Trump’s criticism comes as he continues to pursue a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS, alleging the network intentionally edited Harris’s interview to distort her comments about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and influence the 2020 presidential election.
In a fiery post on Truth Social, Trump condemned the Emmy nomination, calling it a “total slap in the face to anyone who believes in truth and honest journalism,” and questioned whether “60 Minutes and its corporate parents applied to get an Emmy for an illegally falsified interview.”
The controversy revolves around an editorial decision by CBS to split Harris’s interview across two programs—‘Face the Nation’ and ‘60 Minutes’. Trump’s legal team argues that this separation created a misleading narrative, particularly about Harris’s comments on U.S.–Israel relations. CBS has denied any wrongdoing, maintaining that no deceptive editing occurred and that both segments of Harris’s response were aired in full—just not on the same show.
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), which oversees the Emmy awards, responded by defending the nomination, stating the segment was judged by independent editorial panels and selected solely on journalistic merit. The organisation also emphasized that it does not involve itself in political or editorial disputes unless a competition rule is violated.
Despite mounting criticism, legal experts suggest Trump’s case may clash with First Amendment protections, especially since it targets editorial content from a news outlet. Meanwhile, discussions between Trump’s legal team and Paramount Global—CBS’s parent company—continue, particularly as Paramount seeks regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance.
The winners of the News and Documentary Emmy Awards will be announced on June 25. This isn’t the first time Trump has taken aim at the television industry—he previously criticized the primetime Emmys for never awarding his former show ‘The Apprentice’.