‘Extended’ Edition of President Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ Interview Released, Official Transcript Reveals More

CBS has released the “extended” edition of President Donald Trump’s interview with 60 Minutes, which differed from the version that aired on the network Sunday, November 2.

The 73-minute clip, shared by the White House’s official Rapid Response 47 account on X, was labeled as running “without the network’s edits and cuts.”

“Here is how President Trump’s interview aired on @60Minutes, where it was condensed into just ~27 minutes,” the account wrote in a follow-up post.

In the longer version, Trump, 79, referenced his lawsuit against Paramount, the parent company of CBS, which he filed over what he claimed was deceptive editing of then–Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election. The case was settled for $16 million earlier this year.

According to the official transcript, Trump mentioned the lawsuit during the conversation but noted that his response didn’t need to appear in the final broadcast.

“Actually 60 Minutes paid me a lot of money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not — you have a great — I think you have a great, new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise is a great — from what I know,” Trump told 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O’Donnell, seemingly referring to Bari Weiss.

The president continued, “I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person. But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me — a lot of money because they took [Harris’] answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news.”

One portion of the interview that was shortened in every version included Trump’s pardon of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who served four months in prison for money-laundering charges. Trump insisted that he “didn’t know who” Zhao was and that he “knew nothing about” his family’s crypto business, explaining he was “too busy doing the other…”

He called the case a “Biden witch hunt,” and denied any connection between the pardon and his family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.

In the transcript released by CBS News, there was more to Trump and O’Donnell’s conversation regarding Zhao, and the longtime anchor requested permission to ask the president two more questions, to which he agreed.

“These might be the ones I didn’t want. I don’t know. Okay, go ahead,” he said before discussing Zhao’s case.

“I have no idea who he is. I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration,” Trump said in the unaired portion of the interview.

When O’Donnell continued to ask about Zhao and about the fact that he actually pleaded guilty to his crimes, she inquired if Trump was worried about “the appearance of corruption” with his pardon.

“I can’t say, because — I can’t say — I’m not concerned. I don’t — I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it. You just came to me and you said, ‘Can I ask another question?’ And I said, yeah. This is the question…” he replied. “I don’t mind. Did I let you do it? I coulda walked away. I didn’t have to answer this question. I’m proud to answer the question. You know why? We’ve taken crypto…”

While O’Donnell originally asked for permission to ask two more questions, she seemingly cut the interview short after just the one.