While Donald Trump and his allies have long tried to present him as tough and the epitome of classical masculinity, the president himself hasn’t done the myth any favors. On the contrary, the Republican, far from demonstrating strength and vigor, has an unnerving habit of whining and routinely throwing tantrums.
What’s more, his lawyer’s latest legal filing does fresh harm to the idea that Trump is the embodiment of toughness. The Associated Press reported:
President Donald Trump suffered “mental anguish” from CBS News’ editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris last fall, his lawyers are arguing in court papers.
Oh my.
By now, the basic elements of this story are probably familiar, but to briefly recap, shortly before the 2024 presidential election, it’s customary for the major-party nominees to sit down for “60 Minutes” interviews. Last fall, Harris agreed, while Trump initially accepted the invitation before backing out soon after.
Harris’ interview wasn’t especially memorable — it was, however, recently nominated for an Emmy — though Trump has whined incessantly about it for nearly seven months, claiming that the program deceptively edited the segment. The Republican’s claims have already been thoroughly discredited, but his hysterics have only gotten worse: The president last month accused “60 Minutes” of, among other things, “unlawful and illegal behavior.”
Trump added that CBS should lose its broadcast license and “pay a big price,” while calling on the Federal Communications Commission to “impose the maximum fines and punishment.”
But in case that weren’t quite enough, Trump also has an ongoing civil suit against CBS, in which the Republican is asking for $20 billion in damages (that’s not a typo), based on the president’s conspiratorial beliefs about the news magazine’s election coverage.
Paramount Global, CBS’s corporate parent, has asked a court to dismiss the civil case, prompting the president’s lawyers to defend the litigation on the merits. It was against this backdrop that Trump’s counsel claimed in a court filing that the “60 Minutes” segment in question “led to widespread confusion and mental anguish” among news consumers and Trump personally.
The same filing claimed that Trump’s status as a “content creator” was damaged; the public steered clear of his social media platform; and the then-Republican candidate had to “redirect significant time, money and effort” after the episode aired. Given that there really wasn’t anything meaningfully wrong with the broadcast, it remains unclear why anyone would take any of Team Trump’s arguments seriously, or why anyone would believe that the president suffered “mental anguish” that warrants $20 billion in damages. That said, Paramount Global is reportedly trying to settle the case anyway, and critics have expressed fears that the company is prepared to give Trump millions of dollars, not because “60 Minutes” did anything untoward, but because Paramount wants the Trump administration to approve an unrelated merger deal. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Paramount Global recently offered $15 million to settle the case, citing people familiar with the situation. The same report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that the president’s lawyers want more than $25 million and an apology from CBS News, which, again, didn’t actually do anything wrong outside of Trump’s overactive imagination. This ongoing debacle has already cost the network — in the last month, the head of CBS News and the executive producer of “60 Minutes” have both stepped down — and we’ll learn soon enough if the tally gets even worse. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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