White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Tony Dokoupil and an executive producer of CBS Evening News that the president would “sue your ass off” if his Tuesday interview with the anchor was not aired in full, based on The Recent York Times.
After the interview was taped, Leavitt relayed a message from Trump to Dokoupil and CBS Evening News executive producer Kim Harvey. “He said, ‘Ensure that you guys don’t cut the tape, be certain that the interview is out in full,’” Leavitt said, per a recording obtained by the Times.
“Yeah, we’re doing it, yeah,” Dokoupil responded, to which Leavitt added, “He said, ‘If it’s not out in full, we’ll sue your ass off.’”
“Oh, great, OK!” Harvey replied based on the outlet, while Dokoupil, “in a lightweight tone,” said, “He all the time says that!” The Times noted that Leavitt “didn’t laugh” at his reply.
In an announcement, CBS News said they were all the time planning to air Dokoupil’s full interview with President Trump. “The moment we booked this interview, we made the independent decision to air it unedited and in its entirety,” they said in a Saturday statement.
Trump notably sued CBS, which was settled by parent company Paramount Global in a $16 million payout, over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
His lawsuit against CBS claimed “deceptive doctoring” in Harris’ 60 Minutes interview. Before the settlement, legal observers’ predicted that the suit can be dismissed attributable to industry norms pertaining to interview editing. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter Paramount believed the lawsuit could deter Skydance’s deal to amass the corporate, which required regulatory approval, including the transfer of FCC licenses. The merger was later approved in August 2025.
The network was also recently criticized for pulling a planned 60 Minutes report in December in regards to the “brutal and tortuous conditions” at an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration had deported alleged illegal immigrants. CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who was slated into the role by latest Paramount CEO David Ellison, defended the choice, claiming the story “was not ready.”
“I held a 60 Minutes story since it was not ready,” she said in an editorial call on Dec. 22. “While the story presented powerful testimony of torture at CECOT, it didn’t advance the ball—the Times and other outlets have previously done similar work. The general public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment at this prison. To run a story on this subject two months later, we’d like to do more. And that is 60 Minutes. We’d like to have the opportunity to get the principals on the record and on camera. Our viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or the rest. That’s my north star and I hope it’s yours, too.”
In Dokoupil’s CBS Evening News interview with Trump, the president said the anchor “wouldn’t have a job” if he hadn’t won the 2024 election.
“You wouldn’t have this job, actually, regardless of the hell they’re paying you. Our country is rocketing straight away. In the event that they got in, we can be Venezuela on steroids,” Trump said. Dokoupil later pushed back on his claims, noting, “I do think I’d have this job even when the opposite guys won.”
“Yeah, but at a lesser salary,” Trump replied.