How 60 Minutes found out Donald Trump would not participate in an election special

It’s been a tradition for more than half a century that the major party candidates for president sit down with 60 Minutes in October. In 1968, it was Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. This year, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump accepted invitations. 

Unfortunately, last week, Trump canceled. 

The Trump campaign had said that the interview would be this past Thursday at Mar-A-Lago, Trump’s Florida home. It also asked whether 60 Minutes would meet 78-year-old Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate for president was grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt. 60 Minutes agreed. On Sept. 9, Trump communications director Steven Cheung sent a text that read: “I’m working with our advance team to see logistically if Butler would work in addition to the sit down.”

Days later, Cheung called to say “the president said yes.”

Then, a week ago, Trump backed out. The campaign offered shifting explanations. First, it complained that 60 Minutes would fact check the interview. 

“There were initial discussions, but nothing was ever scheduled or locked in,” Cheung said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “They also insisted on doing live fact checking, which is unprecedented.”

60 Minutes fact checks every story it broadcasts. 

Later, Trump said he needed an apology for his interview in 2020. Trump claims correspondent Lesley Stahl said, in that interview, that Hunter Biden’s controversial laptop came from Russia. She never said that. 

“Where’s my apology? They should apologize,” Trump said on Tuesday night at a Milwaukee press conference. “They were wrong on everything. So I’d like to get an apology. So I’ve asked them for an apology.”

Trump has said Harris doesn’t do interviews because she can’t handle them. He has declined to participate in a second debate with Harris. So the Monday night election special may have been the last opportunity between now and Election Day for a national audience to hear from both candidates on a range of issues, including the economy, immigration, reproductive rights and the wars in the Middle East and Europe. Both campaigns understood this special would go ahead if either candidate backed out. Harris, who participated in an interview with 60 Minutes, addressed the issue.

“If he is not going to give your viewers the ability to have a meaningful, thoughtful conversation, question and answer with you, then watch his rallies,” Harris said. “You’re going to hear conversations that are about himself and all of his personal grievances.”