“This is 60 Minutes”

Watching Lesley Stahl’s interview of President Trump on 60 Minutes last night, one might get the impression that she gets her news as strictly filtered and refined by CBS. She therefore doesn’t know anything beyond what can be acknowledged with the approval of CBS News.

Trump gave her 37:40 of his time for the interview last week. In the event, that was about 37 minutes too much.

Peter Schweizer has been on the case of the Biden crime family for a while now. Hunter Biden’s laptop computer hard drive has only given him new material with which to work, as in yesterday’s New York Post column (with Seamus Bruner) “Long-standing claims of Biden corruption all but confirmed with Hunter’s emails.” From the perspective of Lesley Stahl, however, this is unmentionable.

Stahl purports not even to be up to speed on the spying on the Trump campaign conducted by the FBI courtesy of the four FISA warrants fraudulently taken out on Carter Page and so on. She appears to be clueless. We know that’s not true, but you would have to think so if you took her remarks at face value. If we didn’t know better, we might mistake her for a low information voter.

Turning to the unedited transcript of the interview, I would like to submit the following excerpts for your consideration:

Donald Trump: (21:22)
Lesley, let me ask you. You think it’s okay for the Mayor of Moscow’s wife to give him millions and millions of dollars, three and a half million dollars, to give his family three and a half? Do you think it’s okay for Hunter Biden to say that we’re giving the big guy 10% of this massive amount of money they’re taking? Do you think it’s okay for all of these horrible things that you’ve seen, where they’re getting hundreds of thousands, and millions of dollars, where China gives them a billion and a half dollars to manage, the family, a billion and a half dollars, and then he’s supposed to negotiate? Let me tell you, it’s the second biggest scandal. The biggest scandal was when they spied on my campaign. They spied on my campaign.

Lesley Stahl: (22:14)
Can I say something? This is 60 Minutes and we can’t put on things we can’t verify.

Donald Trump: (22:21)
You won’t put it up because it’s bad for Biden.

Lesley Stahl: (22:22)
We can’t put on things we can’t verify.

Donald Trump: (22:24)
Lesley, they spied on my campaign.

Lesley Stahl: (22:27)
Well, we can’t verify that.

Donald Trump: (22:27)
It’s been totally verified. Just go down and get the papers. They spied of my campaign, they got caught.

Lesley Stahl: (22:34)
No.

Donald Trump: (22:35)
And then they went much further than that, and they got caught. And you will see that, Lesley. And you know that, but you just don’t want to put it on the air.

Lesley Stahl: (22:42)
As a matter of fact, I don’t know that.

Trump is right. Stahl is wrong. Indeed, Stahl knows that.

Here we turn to the Biden crime family:

Donald Trump: (24:47)
It’s a very important issue to find out whether or not a man is corrupt, who’s running for president. Who’s accepted money from China, and from Ukraine, and from Russia. Yeah, I think that’s an important issue.

Lesley Stahl: (24:56)
All these things have been investigated and discredited.

Donald Trump: (24:58)
It’s incredible the way you can try and say this and sit there and look me in the eye and say it. He accepted money, his family, from Russia, from Ukraine, from China and from other places. His brother who didn’t have experience became a big builder in Iraq, without experience. Take a look at what’s going on, Lesley. And then you say that shouldn’t be discussed? It’s the biggest scandal out there, Lesley.

Lesley Stahl: (25:26)
And you think it’s the biggest issue to campaign on?

Donald Trump: (25:30)
I think it’s one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever seen, and you don’t cover it. You want to talk about-

Lesley Stahl: (25:36)
Well, because it can’t be verified.

Donald Trump: (25:37)
You want to talk about insignificant things.

Lesley Stahl: (25:40)
I’m telling you.

Donald Trump: (25:41)
Of course it can be verified. Excuse me, they found a laptop. Lesley, listen.

Lesley Stahl: (25:45)
It can’t be verified.

Donald Trump: (25:47)
What can’t be verified?

Lesley Stahl: (25:47)
The laptop.

Donald Trump: (25:48)
Why do you say that? Even the family hasn’t… The family on the laptop… He’s gone into hiding for five days, he’s gone into hiding.

Lesley Stahl: (25:59)
He’s preparing for your debate.

Donald Trump: (26:01)
Oh, it’s taking him five days to prepare? I doubt it, I doubt it. Okay, go ahead.

Trump is right. Stahl is wrong. If we took her at face value, as I say, we’d have to conclude that she doesn’t keep up with the news.

Here is a bit more:

Lesley Stahl: (28:52)
I’ve been listening to you, I don’t know how long we’ve been here, and it’s just attack, attack, attack, attack, attack.

Donald Trump: (28:55)
I don’t think so. It’s not attack.

Lesley Stahl: (28:56)
It is.

Donald Trump: (28:57)
It’s defense, it’s defense against attacks.

Lesley Stahl: (29:06)
No, you’ve been attacking.

Donald Trump: (29:06)
It’s defense against attacks.

Lesley Stahl: (29:06)
You are very oppressive.

Trump is right. Stahl is wrong.

Here we approach the end, when Trump takes a hike:

Lesley Stahl: (34:49)
You want to lock up the Bidens?

Donald Trump: (34:50)
No, I don’t want to lock them up, but they certainly should be looked at.

Lesley Stahl: (34:53)
Obama? You want to lock up Obama?

Donald Trump: (34:55)
No, I don’t want to lock him up, but he spied on my campaign.

Lesley Stahl: (34:58)
Do you want to lock up-

Donald Trump: (34:58)
Obama and Biden spied on my campaign. Do you know what that is? You know what they did? Do you know how horrible it is, what they did?

Lesley Stahl: (35:05)
That’s never been verified.

Donald Trump: (35:08)
It’s been totally verified, Lesley.

Lesley Stahl: (35:09)
No. I’m sorry.

Donald Trump: (35:10)
You’ll find out, but it’s been totally verified.

Trump is right. Stahl is wrong. Indeed, the FBI spying continued from the Trump campaign right into the Trump presidency.

The comment below via Twitter is close to my heart, but the problem with CBS News isn’t its occasional fraudulence. It is the incessant partisan propaganda, witness the interview broadcast last night.

“this is 60 Minutes. And we can't put on things we can't verify.” pic.twitter.com/Dkb8fq24DW

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 22, 2020