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Bari Weiss' CBS News Spiked Interview Question on Trump Crypto ‘Corruption’
"According to the standard set by the Trump FCC, Trump's efforts to control the interview content "could qualify as news distortion and deserve an investigation," according to a spokesperson for the only Democratic FCC commissioner.
Nov 04, 2025
As its new right-wing leadership comes under scrutiny, CBS News was found to have edited out a section from the extended online version of Sunday's "60 Minutes" interview with President Donald Trump in which he was interrogated about potential "corruption" stemming from his family's extraordinary cryptocurrency profits during his second term.
In the first half of 2025, the Trump family raked in more than $800 million from sales of crypto assets, according to Reuters, and the volatile digital currencies now make up the majority of Trump's personal net worth. His administration, meanwhile, has sought to aggressively deregulate the assets, leading to allegations of self-dealing.
Near the end of his appearance on "60 Minutes," anchor Norah O'Donnell asked Trump about his decision last month to pardon Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges in 2023. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's pardon came "following months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company,” by helping to facilitate an Emirati fund's $2 billion purchase of a stablecoin owned by World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture backed by the Trump family.
A clip of the extended interview, posted to CBS's website and YouTube channel, showed O'Donnell laying out the crimes for which Zhao was convicted. Trump responded: "I don't know who he is... I heard it was a Biden witch hunt."
"In 2025... Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin," O'Donnell continued. "And then you pardoned [Zhao]. How do you address the appearance of pay for play?"
Trump then reiterated: "My sons are into it... I'm proud of them for doing that. I'm focused on this. I know nothing about the guy, other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government."
He was then shown launching into a lengthy defense of crypto, which he said was a "massive industry" that former President Joe Biden campaigned against, before going "all-in" on it at the very end of the election to win votes.
"I want to make crypto great for America," Trump was shown saying. "Right now, we're number one by a long shot. I wanna keep it that way. The same way we're number one with AI, we're number one with crypto. And I wanna keep it that way."
But a full transcript of the interview, later released on the CBS website, shows that the segment was heavily edited to omit much of Trump's response to O'Donnell's grilling. The version that appeared online did not include several instances in which he interrupted O'Donnell and pushed her to drop the line of questioning.
Rather than dropping the question after Trump's dodge, as the video posted online seemed to portray, O'Donnell persisted, asking Trump again: "So, not concerned about the appearance of corruption with this?”
Trump delivered a hesitant response: "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—."
O'Donnell interjected: "And you answered," to which Trump replied: "I don’t mind. Did I let you do it? I could’ve walked away. I didn’t have to answer this question. I’m proud to answer the question.”
He then concluded the interview by reiterating that America is "number one in crypto" and that "it's a massive industry."
It was not the only portion of the interview that Trump suggested the network could drop. In another moment—which was included in the extended video, but did not make air—Trump bragged that "'60 Minutes' paid me a lotta money," referencing CBS's widely criticized decision to settle a $16 million lawsuit with Trump over its editing of an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris as she ran for president in 2024.
"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," which likely referred to Bari Weiss, the "anti-woke" editor-in-chief installed by pro-Trump billionaire David Ellison after his purchase of CBS parent company Paramount.
As Deadline reported back in October, CBS Evening News was the only major news network program that did not mention Trump's pardon of Zhao at the time that it happened.
Jonathan Uriarte, the spokesperson for the only remaining Democratic commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wrote on social media that "according to the standard set by the Trump FCC, Trump's efforts to control the content of his 60 Minutes interview "could qualify as news distortion and deserve an investigation."
He was referencing FCC Chair Brendan Carr's claims that he could strip away the broadcast licenses of outlets for what he called "distorted" news coverage, which has in practice meant coverage critical of Trump.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) chimed in as well, saying: "Maybe I should file a complaint with the FCC against the Trump White House for editing his unhinged '60 Minutes' interview. It will use the exact same language Trump lodged against Vice President Harris."
But others did not let CBS off the hook.
"Insane this isn't a bigger story or scandal," said Mehdi Hasan, founder of the media company Zeteo. "Just amazing that CBS could do this after paying Trump millions to settle his frivolous lawsuit complaining that they... did exactly this."
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Journalists' Unions Condemn Condé Nast's Gutting of Teen Vogue
"As the rest of Condé remained silent or hemmed and hawed over atrocities in Gaza, Teen Vogue printed some of the best analysis and reporting on Palestine in the country," said one journalist.
Nov 04, 2025
As praise poured in for Teen Vogue following Condé Nast's Monday announcement that the youth-focused magazine would be folded into Vogue.com and key staffers credited with driving the publication's incisive political coverage were being laid off, unions representing Condé Nast journalists condemned the decision to gut the award-winning magazine.
The consolidation of the two brands "is clearly designed to blunt the award-winning magazine’s insightful journalism at a time when it is needed the most," said Condé United and its parent union, the NewsGuild of New York, in a statement.
Condé Nast announced Monday that Teen Vogue's editor in chief, Versha Sharma, was stepping down. The company said the publication, which ceased its print edition in 2017 and became online-only, would remain “a distinct editorial property, with its own identity and mission," but admirers of the magazine expressed doubt that it would continue its in-depth coverage of reproductive rights, racial justice, and progressive political candidates as the politics team was dissolved.
"I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers on other sections, and today is my last day," said politics editor Lex McMenamin. "To my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue."
The unions also said no reporters or editors would be explicitly covering politics any longer.
Sharma helped push the 22-year-old publication toward political coverage with a focus on human rights and engaging young readers on issues like climate action and Israel's US-backed war in Gaza.
"From interviewing [New York mayoral candidate] Zohran Mamdani on the campaign trail to catching up with Greta Thunberg fresh out of her detention in an Israeli prison to breaking down the lessons that Black Lives Matter taught protestors, Teen Vogue has been considered a platform for young progressives inside the glossy confines of Condé Nast," wrote Danya Issawi at The Cut.
Recent coverage from the magazine included a dispatch from Esraa Abo Qamar, a young woman living in Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, about the Israel Defense Forces' destruction of schools there; an article linking the US government's support for Israel's starvation of people in Gaza to the Trump administration's cuts to federal food assistance; and Jewish protesters demanding that US companies divest from Israel.
The unions said six of its members, "most of whom are BIPOC women or trans," were being laid off, including McMenamin.
They added that Condé Nast's announcement included no acknowledgment of "the coverage that has earned Teen Vogue massive readership and wide praise from across the journalism industry."
"Gone are the incisive and artful depictions of young people from the Asian and Latina women photographers laid off today," said the unions. "Gone, from the lauded politics section, is the work that made possible the blockbuster cover of [billionaire CEO Elon Musk's daughter] Vivian Wilson, one of Condé Nast's top-performing stories of the year, coordinated by the singular trans staffer laid off today."
The journalists added that the publisher's leadership "owes us—and Teen Vogue’s readership—answers" about the decision to slash the boundary-pushing magazine's staff. "We will get those answers. And we fight for our rights as workers with a collective bargaining agreement as we fight for the work we do, and the people we do it for."
Emily Bloch, a journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer and a former Teen Vogue staffer, said the consolidation of the magazine is likely "more than an absorption and clearly a full shift from the publication’s DNA," and noted that the decision was announced the day before New Yorkers head to the polls to vote for mayor in a nationally-watched, historic election in which Mamdani has been leading in polls.
"Laying off the entire politics team a day before the NYC election is heinous and a knife in the back to a brand that has solidified its importance for youth," said Bloch. "Devastating... It’s been a force for youth culture and politics since [President Donald] Trump’s first term. This is a major loss."
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300+ Writers Boycott NYT Opinion Pages Over 'Shameful' Anti-Palestinian Gaza Coverage
"As much as any weapons manufacturer," leads an open letter, "the media is part of the machinery of war, producing the impunity and bigotry that enables and sustains it."
Oct 28, 2025
More than 300 writers and commentators warned that the New York Times has played a crucial role in "maintaining the death machine" that is Israel's US-backed policy of bombardment, starvation, and apartheid in Gaza as they signed a letter pledging that they will not publish their work in the paper's opinion pages until the Times takes steps "to revise its own history of support for genocide."
Climate leader Greta Thunberg, writer Mosab Abu Toha, media critic Sana Saeed, US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), editor and author Dan Sheehan, and actor Hannah Einbinder are among those who signed onto the "Boycott, Divest, Unsubscribe" campaign organized by Writers Against the War in Gaza, Palestine Solidarity Working Group, the Adalah Justice Project, and other groups.
While genocide and Holocaust scholars, international and Israel-based human rights groups, and a United Nations expert panel have declared that Israel has been carrying out a genocide in Gaza since October 2023—with violence continuing in the exclave and the West Bank despite a ceasefire—the signatories said that "the United States has operated as a key partner in Israel’s war, providing the weapons that enabled the genocide to continue."
The US government's continued support for Israel, they suggested, would likely not have been possible without the Times.
"There is no American media institution more influential than the New York Times," reads the letter unveiled Monday. "Editors and producers in newsrooms across the West take cues from its coverage, it uniquely shapes political consensus on US foreign policy, and it is widely considered the 'paper of record' in the United States. The politicians who vote to ship 500-pound bombs to Israel do not read emails from their constituents. They read the Times."
But before Israel began its assault on Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, killing at least 68,527 Palestinians and engineering a famine that was declared in August in parts of the exclave, the Times "has revised, elided, and whitewashed the history of Zionism since even before 1948," the signatories said.
"The politicians who vote to ship 500-pound bombs to Israel do not read emails from their constituents. They read the Times."
Since 2023, the Times has "routinely collaborated with Israel," they said, including by publishing a "widely debunked investigation titled "Screams Without Words" shortly after Hamas' attack on southern Israel. The article was written with the substantial involvement of two inexperienced freelancers based in Israel, and the family members of a woman whose story was central to the reporting called into question allegations that she'd been sexually assaulted during the attack. The lead reporter, Jeffrey Gettleman, also made comments after the story was published, saying he did not describe the story as containing "evidence." The Times also later reported that video evidence "undercut" some other details in the investigation, but never published a retraction or correction.
The signatories also wrote that the Times has "reprinted outright lies from Israeli officials while withholding or amending coverage at the behest of the Israeli consulate and pro-Israel lobby groups," and has directed journalists to avoid terms like "slaughter" and "ethnic cleansing" when referring to the attacks on Gaza, as well as avoiding identifying targets as "refugee camps."
"We demand that the Times take accountability, update its editorial standards, and mitigate the harm done to the Palestinian people," reads the letter. "The paper’s editors must do their jobs and tell the truth about Israel’s genocide."
Saeed said in a social media post that the Times has an "aura of authority that has allowed it to remain complicit in crime after crime, with near impunity."
"It should be shameful to be a part of and uphold this institution that intentionally has manufactured justifications and propaganda for the extermination of the Palestinian nation," Saeed said.
The signatories made specific demands, calling on the Times editorial board to:
- Conduct a formal review of anti-Palestinian bias in its reporting, develop new editorial standards for its coverage of Palestine, and bar journalists who have served in the Israel Defense Forces from reporting on its wars;
- Retract "Screams Without Words" due to its inclusion of "unevidenced claims" of sexual assault that were central to the story; and
- Call for a US arms embargo on Israel.
"Since the editorial board finally backed a ceasefire in January of 2025—after more than a year of genocide—that position was adopted by a number of lawmakers and finally implemented this October," reads the letter. "The US must cut off the arms shipments that make Israel’s crimes possible, and the Times editorial board should use its significant influence to call for the end of American weapons transfers to Israel."
In a statement accompanying the letter, the signatories quoted the Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat—one of at least 248 journalists who have been killed in Gaza since October 2023.
“Language makes genocide justifiable. A reason why we are still being bombed after 243 days is because of the New York Times and most Western media,” Shabat wrote.
The signatories said that "as Palestinians in Gaza return to their homes and take stock of the destruction Israel has wrought with two years of airstrikes, massacres, and starvation, it is our responsibility in the West to hold complicit institutions to account for these crimes."
"As much as any weapons manufacturer," they wrote, "the media is part of the machinery of war, producing the impunity and bigotry that enables and sustains it."
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