by Roger Simon
President Trump, rather remarkably, frequently sits down with journalists who obviously hate him —and those same journalists look shocked that he calls them on it.
That’s what happened tonight (April 26, 2026) when the president was interviewed on CBS’s ‘Sixty Minutes’ by Norah O’Donnell, less than a full day after the attempted mass assassination, I guess you could call it that, of him and his administration.
Ms. O’Donnell, whose contempt for the president is well known and who does little in her demeanor to disguise it, quoted the would-be assassins’ rationale, as stated in his “manifesto,” to the president’s face: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
Trump shot right back.
“Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re horrible people,” Trump answered. “Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
“Do you think he was referring to you?” O’Donnell asked.
“I’m not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person? I got associated with all...stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let’s say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, ‘You know, I’ll do this interview and they’ll probably...’ I read the manifesto. You know, he’s a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I’m not any of those things,” Trump said.
After some more from O’Donnell, the president’s last words, “You shouldn’t be reading that on ‘Sixty Minutes’. You’re a disgrace,” are inarguable.
The timing of it is also difficult to understand. O’Donnell and her producers are peculiarly naive, attacking a man just after a third attempt to assassinate him. For most normal people, such behavior creates the opposite response from what they intended and only generates sympathy for the president.
Far worse, since Trump is more than capable of handling himself, this kind of accusatory journalism exacerbates the enmity on both sides that led to the violence in the first place. This isn’t the time for that either.
I am not privy to the battles inside CBS since Bari Weiss took over, but rumors leak out. It’s no surprise that much of the tension seems to revolve around that hoary institution, ‘Sixty Minutes,’ that debuted in 1968 and is said to be the longest-running primetime show in American television.
It has certainly had great moments that many have enjoyed. But its rigid liberal slant has felt almost procrustean for years. Its dealings with the Trump administration depart not just from journalistic norms but norms in general. That its producers would choose someone like O’Donnell to interview the president at a moment like this verges on self-parody and has an element of stupidity and self-sabotage.
Bari Weiss undoubtedly has her work cut out for her in getting the show to reform or to at least populate it with a somewhat new dramatis personae. For the benefit of our country, we can only wish her luck.
Meanwhile, much has been written, undoubtedly with much more to come, about why CalTech graduate and Teacher of the Year, according to some, Cole Tomas Allen took multiple cross-country train rides, replete with arms, from California to D. C. to attempt these deeds, only to succeed in wounding one brave Secret Service man. Nevertheless, one of the leading potential instigators of this crazed journey is the media in all its forms, including the press.
The man was also a computer geek with a graduate degree in that field and a gamer. He apparently spent a lot of time alone in front of screens at 31, sadly, a typical solitary male of our era. (The name of a possible ex-wife was floated briefly on the internet and then debunked.) He had plenty of time to see the world as if it were all social media (he was active on BlueSky, if not in real life) and to take his behavioral cues from the digital world.
As Arthur Miller said of Willy Loman: “Attention must be paid.”
https://americanrefugees.substack.com/p/sixty-minutes-needs-a-drastic-overhaul
