Why does this Kamala Harris interview, conducted by Bill Whitaker of CBS and aired on “60 Minutes,” along with clips aired on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” matter after the election is over?

After all, one could say, Donald Trump won the election. The interview did Kamala Harris no favors at the time. So why does it matter now?

Well, because we all could see that there were shenanigans afoot at the time it aired, as we here at Victory Girls pointed out. CBS refused to release the full transcript of the interview, even after it became apparent that some very generously creative editing had been employed on behalf of Kamala Harris. Well, after the Trump team sued CBS for “election interference” and rumors began to abound that CBS was looking to settle with Trump, the network handed over the complete transcript and video to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday. The FCC then released both on Wednesday afternoon, saying that they were seeking public comment once the materials were made public.

CBS provided the FCC with unredacted video & a transcript of VP Harris’s ‘60 Minutes’ interview in response to the FCC’s review of a News Distortion complaint.

CBS did not ask for confidential or non-public treatment of these materials.

Given the value of transparency & the…

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 5, 2025

The complete post reads:

CBS provided the FCC with unredacted video & a transcript of VP Harris’s ‘60 Minutes’ interview in response to the FCC’s review of a News Distortion complaint.

CBS did not ask for confidential or non-public treatment of these materials.

Given the value of transparency & the public interest here, the FCC is taking two actions.

1. The FCC is making these materials publicly available.

2. The FCC has concluded that establishing a docket and seeking comment on the issues raised in the complaint would serve the public interest.

The people will have a chance to weigh in.

The transcript can be read here, while the entire interview can be seen here. All of it runs just a little over 57 minutes, and it begins as Kamala Harris is just coming into the room for the interview.

So, what does the raw footage and the transcript tell us? That there is a solid reason why Kamala Harris could not and would not go on Joe Rogan’s podcast, despite her camp’s claims that he “misled” them about the timing – something Rogan has been open about, and says he has the receipts to back him. Kamala Harris, to put it bluntly, is an idiot. She clearly believes the hype about herself, and how wonderful and special she is. Like Biden, she existed within a bubble that reality was very rarely allowed to puncture. This means that she can memorize her stump speech lines, and give coherent answers to questions or topics she is prepared for or comfortable with (which is why she was willing to go on “Call Her Daddy,” even though every other part of that interview was tightly controlled) – but ask her an open-ended question on a highly sensitive topic like Israel, and Kamala starts serving up word salad. Just watch this edit.

60 MINUTES CUTS pic.twitter.com/3bK8XgDYCF

— President Dr RollerGator MVIP PhD (@drrollergator) February 5, 2025

In a question from “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker about what the US can do to stop the war from spinning out of control, Harris provides a rambling 140-word answer, according to the full transcript.

“Well, let’s start with October 7th. Because obviously, what we do now must be in the context of what has happened. And as I reflect on a year ago, and that 1,200 people were massacred, young people at a festival, at a music festival, 250 hostages were taken, including Americans, women were brutally raped,” Harris began.

“And as I said then, I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. And as we fast forward into what we have seen in the ensuing weeks and months, far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And we know that, and I think most agree, this war has to end. And that has to be our number one imperative, and that has been our number one imperative. How can we get this war to end?”

The version that was broadcast showed a succinct 56-word reply.

“Well, let’s start with October 7th. Twelve hundred people were massacred, 250 hostages were taken, including Americans. Women were brutally raped. And as I said then, I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. This war has to end,” Harris said.

Another question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemingly “charting his own course” while defying Biden administration calls to moderate the military response was also heavily edited.

The Harris reply that was broadcast was chopped to just 20 words: “The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles.”

However, the full transcript shows Harris giving a long-winded 179-word answer.

“Well, let’s start with this. On this subject, the aid that we have given Israel allowed Israel to defend itself against 200 ballistic missiles that were just meant to attack the Israelis, and the people of Israel. And I think that is the most recent example of why what we do to assist in their defense around military aid is important. And when we think about the threat that Hamas, Hezbollah presents Iran, I think that it is without any question our imperative to do what we can to allow Israel to defend itself against those kinds of attacks,” she begins.

“Now, the work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done which would release the hostages, and create a ceasefire. And we’re not going to stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel, and in the region, including with other leaders in the region, including Arab leaders.”

Now, there are always going to be edits in an interview like this because of time constraints (which, again, is exactly why going someplace with no limits on run time, like Joe Rogan, would have been highly illustrative), but CBS took 57 minutes of footage and trimmed it down to a 21 minute package. They had a LOT to work with, and was this really the answer that should have been edited? I actually think CBS did Kamala Harris somewhat of a disservice in this segment by taking out more of the details, especially from the second question. But there is no question that the edited answers were meant to be helpful for Harris, making the replies much more brief and focused. But her answers did not improve. The immigration section begins at the end of page 26 in the transcript.

5/ When asked about immigration, Kamala talks in circles for literally 6 whole minutes.

It's really quite astounding. pic.twitter.com/obI3KdzwSD

— Yitz Friedman (@friedman_yitz) February 5, 2025

Here is just a portion of the transcript of this segment:

MR. BILL WHITAKER: But I guess my question is, it’s a pretty simple one, if this is the right answer now, what you tried to do with the bipartisan bill this trip —

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: And what we tried to do on day one, Bill. And what we tried to do on day one. When we came in, first order of business before we did the Inflation Reduction Act, before we did –successfully, by the way, without one Republican vote. Before we did the bipartisan infrastructure bill, before we passed the first meaningful piece of legislation to deal with gun violence in America in 30 years, the first, first thing we did was to offer a comprehensive solution to create a pathway for citizenship, and for people to earn it, and to deal with what we need to do to put more resources to ensure that we are able to heighten our level of security at the border.

MR. BILL WHITAKER: So yeah, we do need to move on, because our time is short. But I’m trying to understand how it is that with this emphasis on the border, the numbers of crossings quadrupled under the first three years of the Biden-Harris Administration. What — how did that happen?

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: There are a variety of factors that relate to what we have seen globally, and what we are not immune from at our own border in terms of what we have seen in terms of the surge of immigration and irregular migration. And there are solutions at hand, but we’ve got to have leaders who are solution-oriented, which we’ve been and are, and I am going forward, instead of leaders who want to make it a problem they can run on.

Kamala Harris likes to put together long-winded sentences and use a lot of buzzwords, because she believes that the word salad makes her sound smarter. She really believes that. Did CBS take this raw footage and slice and dice it down to 21 minutes of cleaner answers in an attempt to help Kamala Harris? Their history of slanted editing does not make an alternative explanation easy to accept.

Honestly, the person who should have raised some hell about this interview’s edits was Bill Whitaker, who DID ask decent questions and got not-great answers from the candidate. Did he have a hand in editing this segment package? Is that why he kept quiet, because he was fine with trying to clean up the tossed salad?

Watching Donald Trump give full, unedited remarks to the press on a daily basis has been a huge shock to the American establishment media, after four years of an insanely stage-managed Joe Biden and a heavily edited Kamala Harris. After seeing this raw footage of Kamala, knowing just how bad she can be off-the-cuff (and yes, she did okay at her one debate, where the moderators were most definitely in her corner), can anyone imagine just how awful an unlimited time interview with Joe Rogan would have been?

Is there enough here for the FCC to really go after CBS for editing this interview? Unless there is a whistleblower willing to come forward to shed more light on the editing process, this will likely be egg on CBS’s corporate face, but not actual fines or sanctions. The public will have a lot to say, especially after being invited to do so by Chairman Carr, but I suspect it will go nowhere. What it DOES do, however, is two things. First, it shows us all just how Kamala Harris sounds, unfiltered and unedited – and if she runs for office again, there will be much more scrutiny of how she is being presented and edited (especially by her Democrat opponents). Second, it reminds us all how little we should trust the establishment media, because their thumbs were all on the scale for Joe Biden, and then Kamala Harris. And given their reactions to two-and-a-half weeks of Trump 2.0, they have no interest in changing their ways.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click