CBS is defending its editorial independence after a chilling threat from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to MAGA-coded anchor Tony Dokoupil was revealed in a leaked recording.
In a statement to the New York Times on Sunday, CBS News forcefully pushed back against what critics have pointed to as evidence of the network bowing to pressure from the Trump administration.
“The moment we booked this interview, we made the independent decision to air it unedited and in its entirety,” CBS News said.
After the newly installed CBS Evening News anchor concluded a taped interview with President Donald Trump in January, Leavitt approached the CBS News crew with a warning, according to a recording obtained by the New York Times.
“He said, ‘Make sure you guys don’t cut the tape, make sure the interview is out in full,’” Leavitt said.
“Yeah, we’re doing it, yeah,” Dokoupil responded.
Leavitt then took it a step further: “He said, ‘If it’s not out in full, we’ll sue your a– off,’” Leavitt deadpan replied. When Dokoupil, 45, tried to defuse the moment by quipping, “He always says that!” Leavitt did not break.
Karoline Leavitt also defended the recorded demand.
“The American people deserve to watch President Trump’s full interviews, unedited, no cuts. And guess what? The interview ran in full,” she said in a statement.
CBS ultimately aired Dokoupil’s 13-minute Trump interview unedited on Tuesday evening, consuming nearly half of the program’s 30-minute runtime, excluding commercials.
During the broadcast, Dokoupil questioned the president on grocery prices, Iran, and the administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Trump used the opportunity to boast about his economic record and told the anchor he “wouldn’t have a job right now” if Vice President Kamala Harris had won the 2024 election.
The network already has firsthand experience with Trump’s retaliation against negative coverage. In 2024, Trump sued CBS over edits to a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, his opponent in the presidential election. Paramount, CBS’s parent company, paid $16 million to settle the lawsuit in July 2025—despite widespread skepticism from legal experts over the suit’s merits.
Shortly after the 60 Minutes settlement, the Trump administration approved the sale of Paramount to Skydance Media, the studio run by Trump ally David Ellison.
Since then, CBS News has attempted to rebrand itself under billionaire Ellison, who appointed controversial Free Press blogger Bari Weiss as the network’s editor-in-chief in October. Weiss’s lack of experience in investigative journalism—or broadcast television—fueled speculation that her sudden rise to the top at CBS was an effort to appease Trump as Ellison pursues a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
Weiss hand-picked Dokoupil, who previously co-hosted CBS’s morning show. He declared upon his appointment that the Evening News would rail against “elites” and the “legacy media,” which he accused of mishandling coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop, Hillary Clinton’s emails, and “the president’s fitness for office.”
What has actually transpired, however, has painted a far different picture: glowing tributes to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on-air crying, and a string of awkward technical difficulties.
CBS News is not the only outlet that has faced the Trump administration’s legal attacks. ABC paid the same amount in December 2024 to resolve a separate Trump lawsuit over comments by anchor George Stephanopoulos, while outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC are currently fending off legal threats from the president.
The Daily Beast reached out to CBS for comment.
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