Former ’60 Minutes’ producer says he was pressured to apologize over Harris interview

Former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens said that he was pressured to apologize over the program’s interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, which was the subject of President Donald Trump‘s lawsuit against CBS, and said he refused. 

“I said, I’m not apologizing for anything. We haven’t done anything wrong,” he explained at Colby College in Maine on Friday, after accepting a journalism award, as reported by The Guardian. “We haven’t done anything wrong. 60 Minutes isn’t perfect. 60 Minutes has made mistakes in the past, and we have always owned those mistakes.”

The former producer added, “The only thing I could do was professionally blow myself up to create a blast radius around 60 Minutes to get people’s attention that this was happening.”

Owens resigned from his position in April 2025, citing a lack of independence. 

Former “60 Minutes” producer Bill Owens on stage at an event in Toronto, Canada in June 2022. (Vaughn Ridley/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images)

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Owens also said he faced pressure over “60 Minutes” reporting on Gaza, as well as with coverage of Trump. 

“The Trump stuff they were very concerned about,” he said. “I remember at one point I got a phone call from someone that was trying to be an intermediary saying: ‘Do you need to mention Trump’s name that often?”

Owens said Shari Redstone, a former Paramount shareholder, didn’t like “60 Minutes'” coverage of the war in Gaza. The program ran a segment on former Biden officials in the State Department who left their positions over the administration’s handling of the war. 

“She didn’t like the story,” Owens said. He said he was discouraged to report on more stories on Gaza, but said Redstone never called him directly.

Former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens. (Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images)

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“When I said we were going to do another Gaza piece, that was like hitting a hornet’s nest,” he said, according to The Guardian. “This idea that we were doing stories that [lacked] balance, on the face of it – it’s just wrong.”

Trump sued CBS News and its parent company, Paramount Global, in October 2024 over an interview on “60 Minutes” with Harris. Trump accused the outlet of deceptive editing and election interference. 

Paramount and CBS agreed to settle with the president in July, with Trump receiving $16 million upfront to cover legal fees, costs of the case, and contributions to his future presidential library or charitable causes.

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President Donald Trump speaks to a gathering of top U.S. military commanders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Quantico, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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CBS did not immediately return a request for comment from Fox News Digital.