CBS News Changes Interview Policy Amid Backlash Over Kristi Noem Edits

CBS News has been forced to overhaul its interview policy after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused the network of deliberately manipulating her remarks on Face the Nation.

“In response to audience feedback over the past week, we have implemented a new policy for greater transparency,” CBS said Friday, according to the New York Post.

The network announced that Face the Nation “will now only broadcast live or live-to-tape interviews (subject to national security or legal restrictions).” It promised viewers will now see “the full, unedited interview on CBS,” while transcripts and uncut footage will continue to be posted online.

The shift came after Noem blasted CBS for cutting key parts of her interview last Sunday.

“This morning, I joined CBS to report the facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety,” Noem wrote on X.

What viewers saw was Noem declaring, “One thing that we will continue to do is to make sure he doesn’t walk free in the United States of America.”

But CBS cut her follow-up, in which she laid out the full scope of Garcia’s crimes: “This individual was a known human smuggler, a MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife-beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors.”

Noem continued, “And even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off, he was so sick in what he was doing and how he was treating small children. So he needs to never be in the United States of America. And our administration is making sure we’re doing all that we can to bring him to justice.”

CBS defended itself by pointing to the full interview posted online. Critics, however, noted that the network’s online content reaches a fraction of the 2.3 million people who tune in to its Sunday broadcast.

This isn’t CBS’s first run-in with accusations of politically motivated editing. In 2024, President Donald Trump sued CBS and its parent company, Paramount, after the network altered a 60 Minutes interview with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris — deleting a rambling answer about Israel and replacing it with a cleaner response from another part of the exchange.

Trump’s legal team argued that CBS violated fairness standards under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Paramount ultimately settled the case in July, paying $16 million toward the president’s future presidential library.

CBS’s reversal following Noem’s criticism underscores a growing crisis of trust between the corporate press and the American people — one fueled by repeated examples of selective editing that always seem to shield Democrats while targeting conservatives.