Trump claimed Harris’ ‘60 Minutes’ interview violated campaign finance law. That’s False

After former President Donald Trump backed out of a "60 Minutes" interview — skipping a decadeslong tradition of major party presidential candidates’ interviews with the network ahead of the general election — he called his Democratic opponent’s interview a "giant fake news scam."

Before Vice President Kamala Harris’ "60 minutes" interview aired, the show posted a video clip preview Oct. 6 on X. The CBS News show "Face the Nation" also shared the preview during its Oct. 6 broadcast.

In the clip, Harris answered a question about U.S.-Israel relations. The next day, when the full interview aired, it showed Harris giving a different answer to the same question.

"I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced (‘cut and pasted’) Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions … all in an effort, possibly illegal as part of the ‘News Division,’ which must be licensed, to make her look ‘more Presidential,’ or a least, better," Trump posted Oct. 9 on Truth Social.

He continued, "It may also be a major Campaign Finance Violation."

PolitiFact contacted Trump’s campaign to clarify what campaign finance rule he was referring to, but spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not answer that question. Instead, she called on CBS News to release the "full, unedited transcript" from Harris’ "60 Minutes" interview. "What do they, and Kamala, have to hide?" Leavitt said.

A media ethics expert told us it’s common for television broadcasts to select portions of a response from an interview, but that the network should publicly clarify its actions. And campaign finance experts said Trump’s claim about a rule violation is baseless. 

In the preview clip and the full interview, "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker asked about the Biden-Harris administration’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Here is the exchange from the preview clip:

Whitaker: "We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a cease-fire. He’s resisted. You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. He has promised to make Iran pay for the missile attack, and that has the potential of expanding the war. Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?"

Harris: "The aid that we have given Israel allowed Israel to defend itself against 200 ballistic missiles that were just meant to attack the Israelis and the people of Israel. And when we think about the threat that Hamas, Hezbollah, presents, Iran, I think that it is without any question our imperative to do what we can to allow Israel to defend itself against those kinds of attacks. Now, the work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done which would release the hostages and create a cease-fire. And we’re not gonna stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region including Arab leaders."

Whitaker: "But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening."

Harris: "Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region."

Whitaker: "Do we have a real close ally in Prime Minister Netanyahu?"

Harris: "I think, with all due respect, the better question is, ‘Do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people’? And the answer to that question is, ‘Yes.’"

And here’s the exchange on the same topic that was included in the full interview:

Whitaker: "We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a cease-fire. He's resisted. You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?"

Harris: "The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles."

Whitaker: "But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening."

Harris: "We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end."

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Whitaker: "Do we have a real close ally in Prime Minister Netanyahu?"

Harris: "I think, with all due respect, the better question is, ‘Do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people’? And the answer to that question is, ‘Yes.’"

Trump and other social media users shared a side-by-side comparison of Harris’ different responses to Whitaker’s remark about Netanyahu "not listening."

Trump posted Oct. 10 on Truth Social that Harris’ "REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better."

But that’s not what CBS News says happened, The Associated Press reported. (PolitiFact contacted CBS News, but received no reply.)

A CBS News spokesperson told The Associated Press that Harris said both of the statements seen in the preview clip and the full interview back-to-back during her sit-down with "60 Minutes." The full interview took 45 minutes, and that was edited down to 20-minutes.

CBS News did not respond on the record to the AP about Trump’s criticisms.

Kelly McBride, senior vice president and chair of Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, told PolitiFact that this type of editing is typical for broadcast news. (PolitiFact is owned by the Poynter Institute.)

"It is a time-limited medium, so they’re definitely going to select portions of a response in an interview," McBride said. She added that some broadcast news outlets have standards against jumping clips together or removing presidential candidates’ stumbles.

McBride said although she is not privy to the details of what happened with this "60 Minutes" interview, in most cases, broadcast news outlets are editing "to make the production more digestible for the audience, not to deceive, by either making a candidate look better or worse."

But because CBS News hasn’t released the unedited, full interview with Harris, Trump has been able to question the outlet’s journalistic integrity, McBride said.

"Once you cast doubt on something, it’s really on the news organization to explain and demonstrate why it’s trustworthy, and that shouldn’t be hard to do," McBride said.

In his criticism of Harris’ "60 Minutes" interview, Trump claimed campaign finance rules might have been broken.

Absent details or evidence from the Trump team, political experts we contacted said they did not believe that this interview was a campaign finance violation.

Some social media users claimed the interview was edited to favor Harris and that amounted to an "in-kind contribution."

This type of contribution is a nonmonetary donation to a political candidate, such as when an organization offers a candidate goods or services for free or at a discounted rate, according to the Federal Election Commission.

But Dan Weiner, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s elections and government program, said it’s a "pretty far-fetched argument."

"I’m not aware of the FEC or any other governmental body concluding that (news) coverage that some people might have thought was favorable amounted to an in-kind contribution," Weiner said. "This is pretty far afield from anything that I think the FEC or any other regulatory body would ever pursue."

Weiner added that social media users could be referring to the Federal Election Commission’s rule that public debates must be structured so that they do not promote or advance one candidate over another. If a debate is slanted toward one candidate, that "might constitute an illegal contribution," he said.

McBride, of Poynter, said, "When I look at the tapes, I don’t think (Harris) comes off looking any better in either one. I can’t discern a nefarious motive by looking at the two different tapes."

Trump said on Truth Social that Harris’ "60 minutes" interview might be "a major Campaign Finance Violation."

The Trump campaign declined to elaborate or provide evidence about which campaign finance law could have been violated. The burden of proof is on the speaker, and Trump has presented no basis for this claim. Political experts also said Trump’s statement was far-fetched and baseless.

We rate this claim False.