AwesomeCapital

Monday, November 3, 2025

‘60 Minutes’ edits out Trump on $16M settlement from CBS

President Trump bragged about the $16 million lawsuit settlement paid out by CBS News’ parent company during his interview with “60 Minutes” — in comments that were edited out of the TV broadcast on Sunday night.

“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,” the president told “60 Minutes” reporter Norah O’Donnell during their Mar-a-Lago sitdown.

The comment did not make it into the final cut of the CBS broadcast — though it was included in the extended “Overtime” version that the Tiffany Network posts on its YouTube channel.

CBS News also posted a full transcript of the interview.

Trump also praised the new management at CBS News, particularly Bari Weiss, the co-founder of The Free Press newsletter who was named by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison as editor-in-chief of the news division that oversees “60 Minutes” — another remark which didn’t make air.

“[Y]ou 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,” the president said in reference to the avowedly pro-Israel and anti-woke Weiss.

“I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person,” Trump said of Weiss.

“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,” Trump said in the unaired remarks to O’Donnell.

“You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”

The Harris interview prompted Trump to file a lawsuit against CBS and its then-parent company, Paramount Global, which decided to seek a settlement rather than having the case go to court.

The settlement with Trump sparked outrage in light of the fact that Paramount Global was seeking approval from the administration’s regulatory agencies to complete its merger with Skydance, headed by David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder and Trump backer Larry Ellison.

Weeks after the settlement was signed this past summer, the Paramount-Skydance merger was approved.

One of David Ellison’s first moves as head of the newly merged entity was to hand the reins of CBS News over to Weiss, who sold her Free Press site to Paramount Skydance for a reported $150 million.

Since taking over last month, Weiss has ruffled feathers at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street in Manhattan.

During one meeting, she bluntly asked “60 Minutes” producers why many Americans view them as biased.

Weiss also personally took the trouble to book high-profile guests for “60 Minutes,” including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.

The initial weeks of Weiss’s tenure as top editorial boss at CBS News has been met with resistance from staffers — some of whom describe the workplace as a “snake pit” where veteran producers are loath to easily yield to change and will likely try to undermine the new regime with leaks, insiders told The Post.

Another segment that didn’t make it to air on the Sunday broadcast — and which was also omitted from the “Overtime” video on YouTube — was a testy exchange between Trump and O’Donnell about his controversial decision to pardon Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.

O’Donnell pressed Trump about the pardon, which Trump issued after Binance struck a $2 billion deal with the Trump family’s crypto venture World Liberty Financial, according to the transcript.

“How do you address the appearance of pay for play?” O’Donnell asked Trump.

“Okay, are you ready? I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt,” Trump said.

“And what I wanna do is see crypto, ’cause if we don’t do it it’s gonna go to China, it’s gonna go to — this is no different to me than AI.”

“I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it,” a visibly frustrated Trump said.

“You just came to me and you said, “Can I ask another question?” And I said, yeah.”

A White House spokesperson told The Post: “President Trump gave a powerhouse interview for over an hour that covered a wide range of topics, including the historic 10 months America has had under his leadership.”

CBS News and parent company Paramount Skydance declined to comment. The Post has sought comment from Biden and Binance.

https://nypost.com/2025/11/03/media/60-minutes-edits-out-trumps-bragging-about-16m-settlement-from-cbs-paid-me-a-lotta-money/

Where big Wall Street firms are moving as NYC looks poised to elect a socialist mayor

As Wall Street faces the prospect of left-wing firebrand Zohran Mamdani becoming the city’s next mayor, a fast-growing business hub down south is beckoning.

Dallas — whose grab bag of major business moguls has included Ross Perot, Mark Cuban and Jerry Jones — has more recently become a major draw for big financial firms that were born and raised in the Big Apple.

Goldman Sachs is building an 800,000-square-foot, $500 million campus in Dallas. It’s set to open in 2028 and consolidate over 5,000 employees. Last year, the mega bank hired Robert Kaplan, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, as its vice chairman.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase now employs 31,000 in Texas — more than its 24,000 staffers in New York. That’s despite the fact that the bank just opened a $3 billion Park Avenue headquarters designed by British superstar architect Norman Foster.

“It shouldn’t have been that way, but Texas loves you being there,” CEO Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg in 2023.

Two years later, Wall Street is feeling less love than ever from the Big Apple, as voters are poised to elect a Uganda-born mayoral candidate who has long dabbled in “defund the police” rhetoric and who has pledged to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Fortress Investment Group co-CEO Drew McKnight, who joined the $53 billion asset manager in 2005, told The Post in an exclusive interview that officials have also moved quickly to slash red tape and make the switch more attractive

“New York is still the financial capital of the US and one of the financial capitals of the world … But Texas can compete,” the 47-year-old Goldman Sachs alum said from the firm’s 50,000-square-foot headquarters in Dallas that’s part of what US financiers have dubbed “Y’all Street.”

The Post reported on Oct. 22 how McKnight was concerned about how mayoral frontrunner Mamdani could upend the city’s real estate market with his rent-freeze agenda.

The firm remains incorporated in New York but has expanded rapidly in Texas since 2021.

Other Wall Street giants are following suit. Dallas accounts for 384,000 financial sector jobs, trailing New York as the second-biggest hub in the country.

But data compiled by Big Apple business power broker Kathryn Wylde found that Texas had 519,000 financial sector employees in 2024, above the 507,000 financial services workers across the state of New York.

Texas has constitutionally banned financial transaction taxes and created specialized business courts; both moves are designed to attract capital from traditional coastal commercial centers.

“Texas has made it really easy to do business and really easy to hire,” McKnight said. “It’s not just the tax regime — it’s permitting, decision-making, and speed.”

He pointed to the example of MP Materials, a Fortress-backed rare earths producer that broke ground on a magnet manufacturing plant in Fort Worth in 2023 and began operations just 18 months later.

“From shovels in the ground in May of ’23 to operating by Thanksgiving of ’24,” the Fortress veteran said. “That timeline would be unthinkable elsewhere.”

“I’ve heard some folks who made the New York-to-Miami move that have since moved back,” McKnight said. “We’ve had no one come to Dallas and move back.”

Dallas also offers a major quality-of-life advantage over older financial centers; data compiled by the St Louis Fed found that the average commute time is just 27 minutes.

The city’s central location, with both coasts reachable in just over three hours by plane, also makes it a strategic base for firms with national operations.

As for culture and lifestyle — often cited by some Wall Streeters as reasons to resist leaving New York — McKnight said the city is more than keeping pace.

“There are too many great restaurants coming in,” he said, citing Carbone and Mr. Charles as favorites. “Your ability to go see sports and live music is fantastic.”

McKnight’s advice to young bankers or executives considering a move was straightforward: “You don’t sacrifice anything by being in Dallas versus being in New York,” he said. “From a business perspective, it’s easy. From a lifestyle perspective, it’s better.”

For now, McKnight sees the Texas trend not as an exodus but an evolution. “Things would have to change a lot for us not to want a strong presence in New York,” he said. “But Dallas isn’t just catching up — it’s competing.”

https://nypost.com/2025/11/03/business/heres-where-big-wall-street-firms-are-moving-as-nyc-looks-poised-to-elect-a-socialist-mayor/

US, Qatar open Middle East's first joint air defense post

The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Monday that it opened the first bilateral Combined Command Post for air defense in the Middle East with Qatar.

The post, located within the Al Udeid Air Base southwest of Doha, was opened earlier in the day by CENTCOM Commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, and Qatari Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Jassim al-Mannai. "The new Combined Command Post for air defense will enhance regional security cooperation today and in months and years to come," Cooper commented, as shared by CENTCOM on X.

The announcement came a few months after US President Donald Trump visited Qatar and the American troops at the Al Udeid Air Base. In June, Iran attacked the base in response to the US airstrikes on its nuclear facilities.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/US-Qatar-open-M.-East's-first-joint-air-defense-post/65106468

Johnson: Democrats fear Mamdani win in NYC race

United States House Speaker Mike Johnson warned on Monday that the upcoming New York City elections could bring "a Marxist, a communist" candidate to power, referring to New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, as voters prepare to head to the polls on Tuesday.

Speaking at the press conference, Johnson said Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are "terrified" of Mamdani's potential victory, claiming they fear "political retribution" from the far left.

"It is the extremism on the left that is the direct cause of Americans suffering right now," Johnson emphasized, claiming Democrats care more about appeasing activists than addressing issues like food assistance, border security, and federal worker pay amid the ongoing government shutdown.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Johnson:-Democrats-fear-Mamdani-win-in-NYC-race/65106636

FDA Eyes Accelerated Reviews for Gene Editing Therapies

Vinay Prasad, chief of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, is planning to publish a paper this month to outline his office’s thinking of accelerating gene editing reviews.

The FDA is devising a mechanism to expedite the review and approval of gene editing therapies in a bid to accelerate the development of drugs addressing rare conditions.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, Vinay Prasad, director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said that a forthcoming paper this month will detail the regulator’s thinking and a new approach to gene editing approvals. “Regulation has to evolve as fast as science evolves,” he said, adding that the FDA wants to be “extremely flexible” when it comes to this modality.

“The moment we publish our paper, the investment in this space will flow,” Prasad added.

Friday’s news seems to have been partially spurred by the news of a team successfully treating an extremely rare genetic condition in a baby using CRISPR gene editing. The infant, named KJ, had CPS1 deficiency, a disease characterized by excessive urea levels in the body, leading to permanent brain damage or death.

At the time, Mark Veich, CEO of the public charity Advancium Health Network, told BioSpace that the success in this case could catch the attention of the FDA and, in turn, prod the regulator to open up speedy review pathways for gene editing approaches for ultra-rare conditions.

This seems to have been the case. In an Oct. 31 paper published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the team behind KJ’s care wrote that their approach had “evidently helped to catalyze a plan by the FDA to create a ‘plausible mechanism pathway’ for conditional approval” for platforms of “bespoke therapies.”

The researchers added that they are currently working with the FDA to determine how they should approach clinical trials of gene editing platforms—rather than individual gene editors, as is currently the case—and how they could “ultimately seek regulatory approval for these platforms.” The team presented plans to CBER for testing gene editing treatments in two more rare diseases, one for phenylketonuria and another for urea cycle disorders similar to CPS1 deficiency.

It is still unclear how Prasad’s forthcoming regulatory framework for gene editing will fit with existing policies and designations, like the FDA’s recently announced Platform Technology Designation program. The award is given to companies that leverage a “well-understood and reproducible technology” as a critical part of its products, according to a draft guidance for the program. In turn, drugs produced using this platform can enjoy a quicker review process.

Currently, the only active platform designation belongs to Krystal Biotech, which was granted last month. The first-ever recipient, Sarepta Therapeutics, had the designation revoked in July due to a string of patient deaths associated with the company’s gene therapies.

https://www.biospace.com/fda/fda-eyes-accelerated-reviews-for-gene-editing-therapies

Search This Blog