A “60 Minutes” candidate hour will feature only Vice President Kamala Harris after former President Donald Trump, who’d previously agreed to be on the show, decided not to participate in the Monday, Oct. 7 special.
“For over half a century, ’60 Minutes’ has invited the Democratic and Republican tickets to appear on our broadcast as Americans head to the polls,” “60 Minutes” said in a statement. “This year, both the Harris and Trump campaigns agreed to sit down with 60 Minutes. Vice President Harris will speak with correspondent Bill Whitaker. After initially accepting 60 Minutes’ request for an interview with Scott Pelley, former President Trump’s campaign has decided not to participate. Pelley will address this Monday evening. Our election special will broadcast the Harris interview on Monday as planned. Our original invitation to former President Donald Trump to be interviewed on 60 Minutes stands.”
Harris and Trump only debated each other once and have no other debates planned before the Nov. 5 election.
Leading up to the candidate hour, Trump, through campaign spokespeople, was the first candidate to accept the “60 Minutes” request to be interviewed for the special, according to CBS News. It had been agreed that both candidates would receive equal time during the broadcast. “60 Minutes” will uphold its agreement with Harris and interviews are scheduled on the campaign trail this week.
In a statement, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said that Trump’s team had not agreed to an interview.
“Fake News,” Cheung said in a post on X. “60 Minutes begged for an interview, even after they were caught lying about Hunter Biden’s laptop back in 2020. There were initial discussions, but nothing was ever scheduled or locked in. They also insisted on doing live fact checking, which is unprecedented.”
Harris is expected to discuss a wide-range of topics, including the economy, immigration, and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel.
The vice president previously sat down with Whitaker last year. She also was interviewed by Norah O’Donnell, “CBS Evening News” anchor and “60 Minutes” contributing correspondent, in 2020.
Trump previously sat down with “60 Minutes'” Mike Wallace in 1985, Pelley in 2015 and Lesley Stahl twice in 2016, first in July of that year and then again in November of 2016. He also spoke with Stahl again in 2018 and 2020. He notably walked out during the 2020 interview with Stahl.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Sen. JD Vance were also invited to participate in the Oct. 7 broadcast. The pair are set to debate each other Tuesday at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. O’Donnell will moderate the debate along with “Face the Nation” moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan.
