Trump calls for legal action, loss of license for CBS over ’60 Minutes’

President Donald Trump was apparently watching TV on Sunday night and was not pleased with what he saw.

The evening’s programming was so distasteful he proclaimed CBS should lose their broadcasting license, and added that he hopes “the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior.”

He added: “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this.”

Trump’s fury stems from some of the subjects touched on by the network’s long-running weekend news magazine, “60 Minutes,” during their latest episode.

According to the president, the program mentions him “almost every week” and always “in a derogatory and defamatory way,” but he added they went way too far this time.

“They did not one, but TWO, major stories on ‘TRUMP’,” the president said via his Truth Social media platform (emphasis his), before calling for legal action against the nearly 100-year-old network.

The first offending segment features interviews with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and discusses the sudden change in the United States’ position on the ongoing war started by Russia. While former President Joe Biden spent much of the second half of his term spearheading an effort to see Ukraine armed and defended, the Trump Administration has attempted to solicit mineral agreements in return for aid and threatened to withhold further aid while negotiating for an end to the war with Russia.

The CBS story includes clips from an Oval Office meeting between Trump, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, and Zelenskyy, during which Trump and Vance tangled with Zelenskyy.

Trump has maintained, both throughout his reelection campaign and after taking office, that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine had he won the election in 2020. Trump continues to claim that the election was rigged against him. In calling for legal action against CBS, the president made those unsubstantiated claims again.

The war in Ukraine, Trump wrote, “is a War that would never have happened if the 2020 Election had not been RIGGED, in other words, if I were President.”

During his interview with “60 Minutes,” Zelenskyy made a direct appeal to Trump to visit Ukraine and see the situation on the ground as a demonstration of Putin’s aggression and Ukraine’s fight for survival. If Trump were to do that, the Ukrainian president said, he would see that Russia would not keep to any negotiated peace.

“Before any kind of decision, any kind of format of negotiations, come to see: people, civilians, memorials, hospitals, churches, children — destroyed or dead,” Zelenskyy said. “Come, look, and then let’s move with a plan how to finish the war. You will understand with whom you have a deal. You will understand what Putin did.”

The second story concerned Trump’s push for the U.S. to somehow acquire Greenland as a matter of national security.

Reporters at “60 Minutes” spoke to several Greenlanders about the president’s stance, and the piece included several experts who said Greenland is already entirely open to the U.S. military’s longstanding presence there.

According to Trump, the framing of the “60 Minutes” story is “casting our Country, as led by me, falsely, inaccurately, and fraudulently.” He didn’t say how, but experts say Arctic dominance is fast becoming a major issue as China and Russia look to control the region as the ice melts.

This isn’t the first time Trump has taken aim at “60 Minutes.”

The show’s October interview of former Vice President Kamala Harris is the subject of a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Trump in November over allegations the network was attempting to interfere with the election by editing Harris’ response.

“I am so honored to be suing 60 Minutes, CBS Fake News, and Paramount, over their fraudulent, beyond recognition, reporting. They did everything possible to illegally elect Kamala, including completely and corruptly changing major answers to Interview questions, but it just didn’t work for them. They are not a ‘News Show,’ but a dishonest Political Operative simply disguised as ‘News,’ and must be responsible for what they have done, and are doing,” Trump wrote.

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