Former CBSer: Release Harris Transcript to Keep Viewers’ Trust

With CBS News refusing to release a full, unedited transcript of the 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, a former top network reporter says it should do so because of “precedent,” And, she wrote today, it should do so to honor the “trust of viewers.”

Fired when she was probing the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, former CBS investigative reporter Catherine Herridge noted that the network quickly released the full transcript of her interview with President Donald Trump in 2020. The network also released other transcripts.

And a network insider told the New York Post that the network might have been trying to help Harris, who is famous for turning on a firehose of gibberish — widely known as word salad — during interviews.

The Interview

That’s what happened when the network’s Bill Whitaker asked Harris about Israel.

As The New American reported earlier this week, the network edited the interview and replaced Harris’ original answer to the question, which was unintelligible, with a new one.

“We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course,” he said. “The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a ceasefire. He’s resisted. You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?”

Replied Harris:

The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles.

Whitaker pressed Harris for a real answer. “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening,” he said.

“Well, Bill,” Harris replied, “the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”

That version of her answer was broadcast on Face the Nation on Sunday.

By prime time Monday, the answer had mysteriously changed:

We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.

That answer appears in the official transcript.

The Trump campaign demanded that CBS released the real transcript. CBS refused.

“Precedent”

Investigative reporter Herridge offered two examples of CBS’s releasing full unedited transcripts.

“As Trump campaign calls on @60Minutes to release ‘full, unedited transcript’ of Kamala Harris interview,” she wrote on X:

There is precedent.   

When I interviewed then President Trump in July 2020 @CBSNews we posted the interview transcript. 

This is more complete and NOT the same as a transcript of the edited TV report.👇 

It’s about transparency and standing behind the integrity of the final edit. 

In another X post today, Herridge wrote that “releasing full, un-edited @60Minutes Kamala Harris transcript is also about honoring the trust of viewers,” and “puts to rest ‘internal edit’ questions.”

Herridge included a link to the transcript of an interview with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in February. And in another post, she noted that CBS provided a transcript of legal correspondent Jan Crawford’s interview with Attorney General Bill Barr in 2019.

“Full transcript = journalistic integrity,” she wrote.

An insider at the network apparently agreed with Herridge. Transparency is all.

“You have a responsibility when you interview a president or vice president to make the transcript available to everyone,” the insider told the Post:

The insider said it isn’t clear if the answer Harris gave in the 60 Minutes interview was taken from another part of the interview or if it was merely spliced for clarity. If it’s the former, the source said it may suggest the network was trying to help Harris.

It is also entirely possible that this is simply an example of miscommunication between the department that edits promotions at CBS and “60 Minutes.”

“This could be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing,” the source added.

Teleprompter Glitch

Harris is known for her inability to handle interviews, and often answers questions by repeating herself in a manner that suggests she simply can’t answer questions. Indeed, she not only boringly repeats herself during interviews and speeches, but also reuses what she apparently thinks is brilliant oratory in multiple speeches, most notably, her cultish mantra, “to see what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

Though viral reports on X claimed that Harris used a teleprompter during a town hall sponsored by the far-left Univision Spanish network, those claims were false.

That said, she froze when her teleprompter failed during a campaign rally in Michigan on October 4.

Embarrassingly, the Democratic presidential candidate appeared bewildered, wondering what to say, and so she launched into one of her mantras, which she punctuated with inexplicable cackling.

“Remember his number, 32. Today, we got 32 days til the election,” Harris said as she giggled.

But as she turned to her left to read the teleprompter, Harris panicked. Her face contorted. The machine had failed.

“So 32 days. 32 days,” she continued:

OK, we got some business to do. We got some business to do. Alright. 32 days. And we know, we will do it. And, and, this is gonna be a very tight race until the very end. This is gonna be a very tight race until the very end. We are the underdog. And we know we have some hard work ahead. 

It was classic Harris. Unsure of what to say without her electronic crutch, she simply repeated herself, as if continuing to dig would get her out of the hole.