CBS’s unaired portions of President Donald Trump’s 60 Minutes interview show the president casting assassination attempts as a marker of consequential leadership, then questioning why a Secret Service agent struck during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting was taken to the hospital.
The interview, conducted by Norah O’Donnell and published in full by CBS News, followed the shooting at the Washington Hilton, where Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Cabinet officials and more than 2,500 guests were gathered for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
CBS said federal investigators were examining the motive of a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California, who allegedly emailed what a senior official called a manifesto to family members minutes before the attack and wrote that he was targeting members of the Trump administration.
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Asked why “so many people may be trying to kill” him, Trump said he had done “quite a bit of research into the word assassination,” then argued that attackers “go after consequential presidents.” He cited Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley, saying McKinley “made the country very rich” and was “very consequential” before being assassinated.
Trump then moved from the attack to his own policy record, saying the country had become “the hottest country anywhere in the world,” referring to military action involving Venezuela and Iran, the B-2 bomber attack, and the killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani. When O’Donnell asked whether his policies were controversial, Trump rejected the premise and turned to immigration and transgender issues, saying, “I don’t think they’re controversial. I think the other side is controversial.”
The “consequential president” argument returned later when O’Donnell asked about political violence and threats against Cabinet officials. Trump said his administration was “consequential,” cited Iran as an example, and said that if Iran “had a shot, they’d probably take it,” while adding, “I’m not tracing anything back to them.” He then contrasted himself with former President Joe Biden, saying violent threats “wouldn’t happen if you’re Sleepy Joe Biden” because “the world was happy” with Biden while taking advantage of the US.
The other striking unaired moment came near the end of the full transcript, after Trump said nobody had been killed or hurt. He then acknowledged that a Secret Service agent had been wearing a bulletproof vest and said he had spoken to him. “He didn’t want to go to the hospital,” Trump said, adding that the agent said, “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”
“If he doesn’t wanna go, what do you force him to go for?” he said, before adding that “the press will say, ‘Oh, he was badly hurt.’” Trump said he was “not saying they’re wrong,” but would have said, “If he doesn’t want to go, don’t make him go.”
CBS’s shorter broadcast version highlighted Trump saying he “wasn’t worried,” his criticism of O’Donnell for reading from the alleged manifesto, his praise for law enforcement, and his call for the Correspondents’ Dinner to be rescheduled. The full transcript, however, shows a wider pattern: Trump used the interview not only to describe the attack, but to argue that threats against him prove the scale of his presidency.
The Guardian reported that Trump also said his curiosity slowed Secret Service agents during the evacuation, quoting him as saying, “I wasn’t making it that easy for them.” CBS’s transcript shows Trump told O’Donnell he wanted to see what was happening and “probably made them act a little bit more slowly” before agents told him and the first lady to get down.
The interview also underscored the political tension around how the shooting was covered. O’Donnell pressed Trump on the alleged manifesto’s motive, including language attacking him personally, while Trump accused CBS of being “horrible people” and “a disgrace” for reading it. CBS’s own report said the suspect’s writings had been sent to family members shortly before the attack and that officials believed administration figures were targeted.
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