107 Days

by Kamala Harris

It was a long interview, and it was of course edited down, as is usual. When a bit of the edited footage was used as a promo on Face the Nation, Trump sued CBS for $20 billion, baselessly claiming that 60 Minutes edited the interview to make me look good. It was a nonsense claim, a frivolous suit, and in normal times CBS management would have brushed it off. But CBS is owned by Paramount Global, which was in the midst of seeking a merger with Skydance Media and needed approval from the Federal Communications Commission. Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, stood to make hundreds of millions if the deal went through. Paramount ultimately settled the suit for $16 million in a move that veteran correspondent Dan Rather termed “a sellout to extortion by the President.” Bill Owens, the respected executive producer of 60 Minutes, and Wendy McMahon, the chief of CBS News, both had earlier resigned from their jobs because of corporate pressure to shape the news to Trump’s sensibilities.