The White House isn’t playing around when it comes to how Donald Trump is portrayed on camera.
According to a leaked recording, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reportedly told CBS News that the president would “sue your ass off” if they edited a single second of his recent interview.
The drama went down on January 13, 2026, right after Trump wrapped up a sit-down with CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil in Michigan. In the audio, obtained by The New York Times, Leavitt can be heard delivering a blunt warning to Dokoupil and executive producer Kim Harvey: “He said, ‘Make sure you guys don’t cut the tape. Make sure the interview is out in full.’ … He said, ‘If it’s not out in full, we’ll sue your ass off.’”
While the threat sounds intense, the CBS team didn’t seem too rattled in the moment.
Dokoupil was heard responding with a laugh, saying, “He always says that!” CBS News eventually aired the full 13-minute conversation that same night, but they made it clear they didn’t do it because of the legal threats. A spokesperson for the network stated that they had already made the “independent decision” to run the interview unedited from the moment it was booked.
During the chat, Trump and Dokoupil covered everything from the protests in Iran to the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The White House is clearly keeping a close watch on the media, especially after Trump’s team previously went after the network for how they handled a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris during the campaign.
Leavitt has since doubled down on her comments, telling reporters that the American people deserve to see the president’s interviews without any “cuts.”
Whether it was a serious legal threat or just the administration’s way of keeping the press in line, it’s clear the White House is watching the cutting room floor very closely.
