Scoop: Trump's "60 Minutes" interview draws roughly 13M viewers
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CBS News' sit-down interview with President Trump Sunday night drew a whopping 13.2 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen data shared with Axios by a CBS source familiar with the figures.
Why it matters: It marks the highest-rated "60 Minutes" episode since Jan. 10, 2021.
- That episode aired shortly after the Jan. 6 Capitol siege and drew 14.87 million viewers.
- It featured interviews with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and Trump's phone call pressuring Raffensperger to find votes to overturn his election loss.
Context: The viewership data, which only includes figures from Nielsen's panel and not its big-data segment, is preliminary and subject to change marginally.
Zoom out: The interview itself was a huge get for CBS, considering the network's complicated history with Trump.
- Paramount in July paid $16 million to settle a voter interference lawsuit filed by Trump last October. The case focused on how a "60 Minutes" interview with then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris was edited. Press freedom advocates had warned the company was buckling to political pressure.
- Paramount has made efforts to court conservatives in the months since. Last month, it acquired The Free Press, a digital media outlet founded by former New York Times writer and editor Bari Weiss, and made Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Between the lines: Sunday night's interview, anchored by CBS News' Norah O'Donnell, made headlines not just for the news that broke during the 90-minute exchange, but also for what was omitted from the 28-minute portion that aired live on TV and the extended 73-minute version posted online.
- One exchange about accusations of corruption involving Trump's family's crypto empire was not included in the extended version the network shared online.
- A separate exchange where Trump gloated about how much money he made from settling the "60 Minutes" lawsuit was included in the extended version online, but it didn't air on TV.
- CBS News posted the full transcript of the 90-minute exchange on its website.
