CBS News Accused Of Deceptively Editing Hegseth Interview To Reframe Israeli Influence Question

CBS News was accused on Monday of editing a segment of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s interview on “60 Minutes” to make it appear like he was answering a question about Israel, Sirius XM’s Megyn Kelly alleged.

The edited segment suggested that Hegseth answered a question about Israel’s influence on the U.S. strikes against Iran. However, the full interview showed “60 Minutes” reporter Major Garrett asking Hegseth to respond to critics who accused the Iranian strikes of not being “America First.”

“You mentioned America First,” Garrett said in the unedited version. “Some who identify with that movement, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, have said from their perspective, this isn’t an America First campaign. Do you want to address that criticism?”

“All I know is, I’m in the room everyday and I see how Trump operates and what he’s putting first, and it’s America, Americans and American interests at every level,” Hegseth said.

“How long should our bases be tolerating thousands of short-range ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones pointing at our bases and other people? After 47 years of Americans being targeted and killed, the men I served with in combat in Iraq coming home with no arms or legs, targeted by Iranian EFPs, thousands of Americans killed. Beirut, you want to go back? We can go back to how long, I mean, the regime itself is premised on death to America. So 47 years, thousands of missiles, and an unrelenting pursuit of nuclear ambitions.”

The televised version indicated that Hegseth responded to whether or not Israel had influenced the U.S. to launch the strikes, with the narrator stating that critics have accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging the U.S. into this conflict.

“Some normally enthusiastic supporters of the president have criticized him, suggesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled the U.S. into a war that, to their minds, did not put American interests first,” Garrett narrated in the televised version.

Immediately following the narrated portion, the interview cut to Garrett asking Hegseth to respond to the “America First” criticism.

Kelly accused CBS News on “The Megyn Kelly Show” of intentionally making this change because its editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, has a pro-Israel agenda.

“They do not give a shit about misleading you over at CBS,” Kelly said.

“The old CBS or the new CBS, which has a brand new agenda. The left will tell you that it’s pro-MAGA. It’s not pro-MAGA, trust me. Watch two minutes of the evening news or the morning news, it is not pro-MAGA at all. But it is pro-Israel. Bari Weiss has finally achieved her dream of running a news network that is entirely pro-Israel.”

In October 2024, President Donald Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS News for editing former Vice President Kamala Harris’ answer to a question on the Israel-Hamas war during her interview with “60 Minutes.”

The lawsuit, which later increased to $20 billion in February 2025, alleged that CBS News participated in “deliberate deception” by omitting parts of Harris’ answer on former President Joe Biden’s stance on Israel in order to boost her chances in the 2024 election.

CBS News’ parent company, Paramount, agreed to a $16 million settlement in July 2025 and agreed to release the transcripts of all future “60 Minutes” interviews with presidential candidates.

The lawsuit influenced then-executive producer Bill Owens and then-CEO of CBS News and Stations Wendy MacMahon to resign in April 2025 and May 2025.

CBS News did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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