Donald Trump Walked out of Lesley Stahl's '60 Minutes' Interview
Updated Oct. 21 2020, 3:19 p.m. ET
With the 2020 presidential election upon us, there are throngs of people trying to have their opinions heard as to who everyone and their mother should vote for. So it's only natural that folks will want to know the political views of everyone offering up their take on who, out of the two main party candidates in the US, would be most capable of leading our country. Which is probably why folks are so interested in Lesley Stahl's political affiliation.
Why did Trump walk out of Lesley Stahl's interview?
The 60 Minutes host began trending recently after she conducted an interview with Donald Trump that the president cut short and then later wrote about on Twitter. At around 45 minutes into his discussion with Stahl, Trump pulled the ripcord, and many people wanted to know why. While an official statement from Stahl and CBS hasn't been given, it doesn't seem like it was a conversation that was going too well, according to Trump's Twitter.
He posted a short clip of Lesley Stahl not wearing a mask after her interview with the president, after tweeting that he was considering posting the complete 60 Minutes interview that the White House's cameras recorded in its entirety prior to CBS airing it "so that everybody can get a glimpse of what a FAKE and BIASED interview is all about..."
He also referenced "electoral intrusion" along with "Sleepy Joe Biden" in a follow-up message.
So yes, there was some interview drama between Donald Trump and Lesley Stahl.
But does that particularly mean Stahl has some kind of hidden, anti-Trump or anti-conservative agenda? There have been instances where guests on 60 Minutes have cut their time short. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy walked out of a 2007 discussion with Stahl after she asked him about his wife. He then stood up and called the interview "stupid" and that it was a "big mistake."
She's broken some pretty big stories, like an Al Gore interview in 2004 when he revealed he wouldn't be running for president, and the 1980 Republican National Convention piece that announced negotiations between Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford had crumbled. She also covered the Watergate scandal.
To say she's a journalist of consequence who covered nationally important stories would be quite the understatement.
She also stated that, like President Trump, she had suffered from COVID-19 after contracting the virus. She went into great detail the effects it had on her health, "After two weeks at home in bed, weak, fighting pneumonia, and really scared, I went to the hospital. I found an overworked, nearly overwhelmed staff. Every one of them kind, sympathetic, gentle and caring from the moment I arrived until the moment days later when I was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers."
She continued by saying, "In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs," and capped it off by thanking all healthcare workers for their tremendous sacrifices in the field.
While it certainly seems like Lesley is going to be the target of Trump's ire for the next few days or so, it certainly doesn't seem like she's been excessively vocal with her political opinions and/or leanings.