The Most Interesting Moments from President Trump's Return to '60 Minutes'

Jorge Bonilla
November 3rd, 2025 12:55 AM

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After five years, President Donald Trump returned to CBS's 60 Minutes for an extensive sit-down interview with Norah O'Donnell. While nowhere near as wild as his previous appearance, the interview was significant and newsworthy.

(UPDATE: There are some in the Elitist Media who are already whining over the fact that CBS aired an edited version of the interview and streamed the full version online, suggesting that litigation may be in order. One is unsure whether these calls for litigation are an attempt sarcasm or a display of idiocy. In Trump's case, CBS posted the full video and transcript IMMEDIATELY. In the case of the Kamala Harris interview, they dragged their feet to the point of being sued. These are not the same. Cope and seethe. We now return you to our original analysis.)

Here are some of the most notable moments:

The interview opened with multiple questions on foreign policy. There were multiple exchanges on China, Hamas, and the Abraham Accords but this exchange on Venezuela reaffirmed Trump's preservation of strategic ambiguity: revealing that the dictator Nicolás Maduro's days are numbered but nothing further:

NORAH O'DONNELL: On Venezuela in particular, are Maduro's days as president numbered?

DONALD TRUMP: I would say yeah. I think so, yeah.

O'DONNELL: And this issue of potential land strikes in Venezuela, is that true?

TRUMP: I don't tell you that. I mean-- I'm not saying it's true or untrue, but I-- you know, I wouldn't--

O'DONNELL: Why would we do it?

TRUMP: --I wouldn't be inclined to say that I would do that. But-- because I don't talk to a reporter about whether or not I'm gonna strike. I'm not gonna-- you know, you're a wonderful reporter, you're very talented, but I'm not gonna tell you what I'm gonna do with Venezuela, if I was gonna do it or if I wasn't going to do it.

Still on foreign policy, Trump contrasts the many shows of respect he garnered overseas versus Joe Biden's frailties:

TRUMP: You see the way they treat me. I go to Japan, I go to South Korea, I go to Chi-- any place I go, and you know what I call that? Respect for our country. They didn't treat Biden that way. When Biden went there-- first of all, he hardly went anywhere. Guy couldn't leave his bedroom. But they didn't treat Biden that way. They had no respect for Biden falling up the stairs going to an airplane three times. I mean, this is a man who should've never been president. This was a rigged election. And we--

O'DONNELL: Can I ask--

TRUMP: --have to get back-- we have to get to the bottom of that also, because we don't want that to ever happen again. You see what's going on. We don't ever want that to happen again. Look what happened to our country by having Biden as the president.

O'DONNELL: I--

TRUMP: Our country went to hell. And if we--

O'DONNELL: I wanted to ask you about Israel--

TRUMP: --had another couple of years, if Kamala had won the election, our country right now would be finished. It was a dead country, and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We have the strongest stock market, we have everybody wants to come in. A year ago we were a dead country. Right now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of that. And I did that in nine months. And it's only gonna get better.

On crime in Washington, D.C. after deployment of federal resources and the National Guard, Trump becomes the questioner. O'Donnell evades in order to confirm that the streets are in fact safer under Trump:

TRUMP: But we're-- we're cleaning up our cities. You know, I campaigned on crime, but I've done a much better job on crime than I thought. You know, the crime numbers are way down, even though we have a lot more people in our country that really shouldn't be here. And many of them are stone-cold hard criminals. When I look at D.C. now, you can walk down the middle of the street. You can have your daughter who's ten years old meet you at the park. She's gonna be okay.

O'DONNELL: In certain parts of D.C.--

TRUMP: She woulda been murdered. Well, I-- in almost--

O'DONNELL: I live in D.C.

TRUMP: Well, you tell me--

O'DONNELL: Certain parts of D.C.

TRUMP: How big a difference is D.C. now compared to what it was a year ago?

O'DONNELL: Uh-huh.

TRUMP: Right? I mean, you have to be honest with me. People walk-- people in the White House, they walk up to me, young ladies I've never seen. "Sir, thank you very much." I know-- I-- they don't even have to tell me what they're thanking me for. But when I ask why? He said-- she-- one girl said, "I'd get into Uber and I felt dangerous even in an Uber." They'd attack the car, okay. It wasn't even safe then. "Sir, I now walk to work every day and I walk, I-- I-- I-- I'm so safe. I f-- there's nothing going to happen. 100% safe." And you know that too, Norah.

O'DONNELL: I wanna ask you about the s--

TRUMP: You live here. You know that too.

O'DONNELL: I wanna ask you about Amer--

TRUMP: Do you see a difference?

O'DONNELL: --American cities--

TRUMP: You see a difference?

O'DONNELL: --in Washington, D.C.?

TRUMP: Yes.

O'DONNELL: I think I've been working too hard. I haven't been out and about that much--

TRUMP: Oh, that's not a fair answer. You see the difference.

O'DONNELL: I get in my car and go to work and I go home--

NALD TRUMP: That's good. You don't have to use that one. Don't worry. Don't worry. I don't want to embarrass her.

O'DONNELL: I've been working too hard--

TRUMP: It's-- it's like you know what the difference is? Like, day and night.

While discussing the ongoing government shutdown, Trump manages to simultaneously hit President Barack Obama, Obamacare, and the Obama Presidential Center currently under construction in Chicago:

TRUMP: It was a defective plan put into line by Barack Hussein Obama, who was a lousy president, not nearly as bad as Biden, by the way, who by the way is building a museum that's, like, four times over budget. It'll never open, built in a neighborhood that-- you know, it's just not gonna work. The neighborhood doesn't even want 'em.

O'DONNELL: Okay.

TRUMP: And it's a disaster. 

On the shutdown, Trump makes clear to O'Donnell that he won't get "extorted" by Democrats:

O'DONNELL: You have-- you-- you have helped these government shutdowns in the past when it came about--

TRUMP: I did.

O'DONNELL: And you did it by bringing back--

TRUMP: I'm very good at it, but I'm not gonna do it by--

O'DONNELL: You brought members of Congress to--

TRUMP: --I'm not gonna do it by extortion--

O'DONNELL: --to the White House.

TRUMP: I'm not gonna do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way. The-- there's something wrong with these people.

O'DONNELL: So then what happens on November 15th--

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Schumer-- Schumer is a basket case.

O'DONNELL: --when the troops don't get a paycheck?

TRUMP: Schumer is a basket case. He's gonna be defeated in the next election by a vast number of people. And he has nothing to lose. He's become-- I just left Japan. He's become a kaz-- kamikaze pilot. This guy--

O'DONNELL: It sounds like-- it sounds like this is not gonna get solved--

TRUMP: --is, this guy is a kamikaze. He would rather see the country fail than have Trump and the Republicans do well. But the people don't want that--

O'DONNELL: It's, I know, I hear you. It sounds like--

TRUMP: So we have a record-setting country right now, and we're not gonna be extorted by a man who's grossly incompetent, who-- who is gonna be defeated by any one of five different candidates. We're not gonna let that happen--

O'DONNELL: It sounds like this is not gonna get solved.

TRUMP: Say it?

O'DONNELL: It sounds like it's not gonna get solved, the shutdown.

TRUMP: It's gonna get solved, yeah. Oh, it's gonna get solved.

O'DONNELL: How?

TRUMP: We'll get it solved. Eventually, they're gonna have to vote.

President Trump framed the upcoming New York City election as a choice between "a bad Democrat and a communist":

O’DONNELL: Former governor Andrew Cuomo, who you know is campaigning for mayor, he recently said that "If Mamdani becomes Mayor of New York City that you will take over New York." Cuomo said this. He said, "He will be President Trump and Mayor Trump. He's gonna take over New York and send tanks down Fifth Avenue."

TRUMP: Oh, that's so crazy. Look. When I left New York, we were at the-- the epitome of it was a great city. It was doing great. It was a great city, but there were some bad sides, because we had a guy named de Blasio, who was the worst mayor. Like I say Biden was the worst president, de Blasio was the worst mayor in history--

O'DONNELL: What if Mamdani becomes mayor?

TRUMP: I think he's probably gonna make de Blasio look great. I think he will make de Blasio look like one of our great mayors. De Blasio was the worst mayor we've ever had. Now I saw that, you know, but I was sort of leaving during that period of time.

I got to see de Blasio, how bad a mayor he was, and this man will do a worse job than de Blasio by far. And it's gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York. Because if you have a Communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there. So I don't know that he's won, and I'm not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other, but if it's gonna be between a bad Democrat and a Communist, I'm gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you.

Finally, here's Trump telling one of the faces of the Old CBS that 60 Minutes paid him "a lot of money" as a result of the edited Kamala Harris video, hails the arrival of Bari Weiss to CBS, and says "you can't have fake news."

TRUMP: She couldn't speak properly. She could not speak. And actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don't have to put this on, because I don't wanna embarrass you, and I'm sure you're not-- you have a great-- I think you have a great, new leader, frankly, who's the young woman that's leading your whole enterprise is a great-- from what I know. I don't know her, but I hear she's a great person. But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me-- a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can't have fake news. You've gotta have legit news. And I think that it's happening. I see--

O'DONNELL: Mr. President--

TRUMP: --I see good things happening in the news. I really do. And I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership. I think it's the greatest thing that's happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.

CBS aired about a third of the actual interview on 60 Minutes, and published the full interview online. In tone and substance, it was a significant departure from the 2020 debacle with Leslie Stahl. Norah O'Donnell ran a wide range of topics and was not fishing for a viral moment. It appears that the Bari Weiss Era is now fully upon us at CBS.

 

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