Trump pulls out of "60 Minutes" interview after confrontation with Epstein files
US President Donald Trump withdrew from an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes program on Sunday evening, April 26 , 2026, after an unprecedented tension with anchor Nora O'Donnell, which ended with the interview ending abruptly and his team leaving the filming set.
The tension began when O'Donnell read excerpts from a statement attributed to the suspect in the shooting incident that took place a day before the interview at a White House Correspondents' Dinner, which included highly sensitive accusations, including calling Trump a "rapist" and a "child molester," words that angered the president, who responded, "I'm not a rapist, I'm not a child molester... You're reading this nonsense about a sick person."
As the debate escalated, Trump called the anchor "disgraceful" and "horrible," arguing that the network had made a grave professional mistake by allowing such allegations to be made on the air, and after minutes of controversy he asked to end the interview immediately and left the venue without completing filming.
The explosive 2026 interview comes a day after a failed assassination attempt on Trump in Washington, where investigators found a letter to the assailant calling himself a "friendly federal assassin," including sharp criticism of the administration's policies and anti-Trump sentiment.
A long history of confrontation between Trump andCBS
The history of the relationship between US President Donald Trump and CBS, particularly the 60 Minutes program, is characterized by intense tension that spans years through a series of public confrontations and mutual accusations of bias and media manipulation.
One of the highlights of this tension began in October 2024, when Trump accused the network of "deceptive manipulation" in an interview with his then-rival Kamala Harris, in which his team claimed that CBS aired two different versions of Harris' response to a question related to the war in Gaza, replacing – according to Trump's account – a confused answer described as "power of words" with a more coherent response in the final version.
In July 2025, Paramount reached a settlement under which it paid $16 million to fund Trump's future presidential library, without a formal apology, leaving the political wound open.
In October 2020, Trump ended an interview with anchor Leslie Stahl after just 45 minutes, complaining about the "bias and rudeness" in the questions, and responded with an unprecedented step by posting the full, unedited recording of the interview on his social media accounts before it aired, in an attempt to prove what he called the show's "hostility."
Trump has not hesitated to threaten to revoke CBS's broadcast licenses, calling the network and its employees "cheaters" and "discredited." These ongoing political and media pressures have led to internal jolts within the organization, including the resignation of the 60 Minutes executive producer and president in 2025, in an indication of the extent of the confusion left by the handling of Trump's cases within CBS.
Epstein Files Attend ' 60 Minutes' Interview
Jeffrey Epstein's files were present in the interview indirectly through the nature of the accusations against Trump, who linked what he is putting to the Epstein files, which have long been the focus of political and media debate, and Trump responded sharply to O'Donnell, saying that the "other side" — referring to his political opponents — was the one who was associated with Epstein, adding, "Your friends on the other side are the ones who got involved with Epstein or other things."
Trump has vehemently denied any connection to the allegations, saying he has been "completely acquitted" of any connection to such cases, and it should be noted that the Jeffrey Epstein files have been the focus of many public media debates over the past years, often associated with different interpretations depending on the political and media context.