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In an intriguing moment outside the White House, President Trump observed workers erecting a new flagpole—an activity that seems fitting for a 79-year-old president whose enthusiasm for rigorous governance may have waned. During this leisurely interlude, a reporter posed a question that prompted Trump to launch into a tangent about *60 Minutes* and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“They’ll do a great job with it, but so what? They interviewed *60 Minutes*, they interviewed Kamala. Her answer was horrendous; I would say election-threatening.”
“This is the day before the election. Her answer was so incompetent that they took the entire response out and substituted it with another answer to a different question. They did that multiple times, but why do it at all? The main question they asked.”
“We caught them, and they’re very embarrassed. They’re currently negotiating a settlement. Can you believe that? They discarded every word of her response and replaced it. Do you think they would ever do that for me?”
The reporter quipped, “I think it happens daily.”
In response, Trump feigned ignorance about the “sanewashing” that might be applied to his own statements, asserting, “Well, I’ve never seen it. I thought I’d seen everything, but this is very embarrassing.”
The reporter was hinting at the media’s frequent tendency to edit Trump’s remarks—altering, omitting, or embellishing them to project a more palatable image of the former president. This phenomenon, often referred to as “sanewashing,” aims to mitigate the more alarming aspects of Trump’s rhetoric, a treatment not typically extended to other recent presidents.
The current administration has inadvertently facilitated this sanitization by withholding transcripts of presidential remarks, thereby allowing the press to exercise greater editorial discretion. Ironically, while Trump’s claims regarding CBS’s handling of the Harris interview are unfounded, the network appears motivated to pursue a settlement—perhaps due to a pending merger that requires the approval of the Trump administration.
Despite the ongoing media sanitization, at least one individual had the courage to vocalize this reality.
What are your thoughts on the media’s approach to “sanewashing” Trump? We invite you to share your comments below.
