Trump’s ‘epic meltdown’ on 60 Minutes revealed as CBS releases full interview with president

Clip of president cutting short ill-tempered exchange has been viewed millions of times on Twitter alone

CBS News aired its full pre-election interview with Donald Trump on Sunday evening, showing the moment the president abruptly walked out after a heated exchange.

Lesley Stahl’s interview with Mr Trump has been making headlines for the past week since it was filmed last Tuesday, after the Trump campaign threatened to release its own video of what happened.

The interview began with a testy exchange, as Stahl started off by asking the president if he was ready for “tough questions”  – and the relationship between the two scarcely improved from there.

After around 45 minutes of questions, Stahl asked the president: “Do you think that your tweets and name-calling are turning people off?”

To which Mr Trump replied: “No, I think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have had social media. The media is fake. Frankly, if I didn’t have social media, I would have no way of getting out my voice.”

Mr Trump, who appeared increasingly irritated with Stahl’s line of questioning and her interruptions to his claims on the economy and coronavirus response, accused the network of being “soft” on his rival Joe Biden.

He said Mr Biden has “never been asked hard questions” and suggested the way Stahl began the interview was “no way to talk”.

Stahl reminded Mr Trump that he was the president and not Mr Biden, when a producer then interrupted to inform the pair of the time remaining. 

At this point, Mr Trump responds that he "thinks we have enough of an interview here”, before getting up and walking away from the set.

A single clip of the final exchange shared on Twitter by political columnist Sarah Reese Jones has been viewed more than five million times. Reese Jones called it an “epic meltdown” on Mr Trump’s part. 

Long before the segment was aired by CBS, Mr Trump in a series of tweets accused Stahl and the network of being “FAKE AND BIASED”. His campaign eventually posted a video of the interview to his Facebook page.

In a statement, the channel called it an “unprecedented decision to disregard their (the Trump campaign’s) agreement with CBS", and defended Stahl’s record as “one of the premier correspondents in America”.

Mr Trump also posted a few pictures from the set, one of which was of Stahl talking to a group of people, where the president pointed she wasn’t wearing a mask.