Donald
Trump on Thursday leaked his own unedited TV interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on
Facebook ahead of the show’s Sunday broadcast date and just hours before the
final presidential debate with Joe Biden in Nashville. The president tweeted
'Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness' about his CBS interviewer Lesley Stahl.
This video headline was amended on 23 October 2020 because an earlier version
misnamed the CBS programme as 60 seconds
CBS releases footage of Trump walking out of 60
Minutes interview
US president halts recording after question about his
use of social media and name-calling
Martin
Belam
Mon 26 Oct
2020 12.49 GMTLast modified on Mon 26 Oct 2020 19.23 GMT
Footage of
the US president abruptly walking out of a CBS 60 Minutes interview has been
released by the network, in a row that has been rumbling since the interview
was taped on Tuesday.
Donald
Trump had already posted clips on his own social media, in an effort to show he
had been mistreated by the interviewer, Lesley Stahl. He had called the segment
“fake” and “biased” in advance.
Trump had
told Stahl: “You brought up a lot of subjects that were inappropriately brought
up.” She replied: “Well, I said, I’m going to ask you tough questions.”
After a
question about whether his use of social media and name-calling was “turning
people off”, Trump brought the recording to an end. He answered: “No, I think I
wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have social media. The media is fake. And frankly,
if I didn’t have social media, I’d have no way of getting out my voice.”
A few
moments later, he told his aide Hope Hicks: “I think we have enough of an
interview here, Hope. OK? That’s enough. Let’s go.”
Trump also
tweeted during the week complaining that Stahl had not been wearing a mask in
the White House. CBS said Stahl wore a mask at all times except during and for
a few moments after the interview, and had tested negative for coronavirus
before arriving to interview the president.
For many,
though, the clips did not give the impression that Trump was trying to convey –
that he had been treated unfairly by CBS.
Jon
Favreau, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama, said Trump came across as
“weak and pathetic” and “a whiny, aggrieved baby”.
“He’s no
longer even pretending to fight for his supporters against liberals,
immigrants, the media, elites, the establishment. Donald Trump is fighting for
Donald Trump. That’s it.”
And Amy
Siskind, who wrote a book on Trump’s first year in office, said: “All he did
was lie and obfuscate, and when he was called on it he got up and sulked out.”
There was
also criticism in some quarters that Stahl had avoided some of the more
difficult questions she could have asked the president about his finances, the
treatment of immigrant children separated from their parents at the US border
by his administration, and the number of people involved in his campaign who
have subsequently been charged with crimes.
A CNN fact
check of the president’s contribution showed he made at least 16 false or
misleading claims during the interview.
In another
segment of the CBS 60 Minutes special before the election, the Democratic
vice-presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, went on record to say she believed
Trump was racist.
Asked: “Do
you think the president is racist?” by the host, Norah O’Donnell, the
California senator replied: “Yes, I do. You can look at a pattern that goes
back to him questioning the identity of the first black president of the United
States. You can look at Charlottesville, when there were peaceful protesters,
and on the other side, neo-Nazis, and he talks about fine people on either
side. Calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. His first order of business was
to institute a Muslim ban. It all speaks for itself.”
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