Bill O’Reilly Just Torched 60 Minutes for What Norah O’Donnell Did to Trump on Live Television

Norah O'Donnell sat across from the President of the United States and read unverified claims from a suspect's document at him on live television.

Bill O'Reilly watched it – and he had something to say about it.

60 Minutes used to mean something in this country.

Bill O’Reilly Calls Out CBS News for Ambush Journalism on Trump

O'Reilly didn't mince words Monday when he unloaded on the 60 Minutes segment now spreading across conservative social media.

"I have a beef with 60 Minutes," he said flatly.

He didn't dress it up from there.

"If you're a journalist, you don't read stuff that's unverified and gutter snipe stuff. That's the National Enquirer. That's what that does."

Then he went for the jugular.

"You don't sit there and read off a sheet of paper, indicting a man who was the target of assassination. That's what Norah O'Donnell did."

He called it shocking – and meant every syllable.

"It was shocking – and I use that word literally – SHOCKING. No responsible journalist does that."

He even questioned her credentials directly: "Does she not have a journalistic degree?"

The 60 Minutes Trump Interview That Has Conservatives Furious

Here's what happened inside that interview.

Cole Allen – a 31-year-old who stormed the Washington Hilton the night before, armed and targeting Trump administration officials – had emailed a document to his family minutes before the attack that officials described as a manifesto.

O'Donnell sat across from the man Allen allegedly targeted and read it to him on air.

The document included the claim that the suspect was "no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."

She read those words directly to Trump.

Trump didn't back down.

"I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you're horrible people. Horrible people."

He called her a "disgrace" on camera and told her she "shouldn't be reading that on 60 Minutes" – then finished the interview anyway.

That last part tells you everything about what CBS was after here.

CBS News Has a Long Record of Targeting Trump and Getting Caught

This wasn't an isolated lapse in judgment at 60 Minutes.

This is a network that spent the last year fighting a lawsuit from Trump over a deceptively edited Kamala Harris interview – a dispute that ultimately forced its own executive producer out the door.

Bill Owens resigned from 60 Minutes in April 2025, writing in a memo to staff that it had become clear he would not be allowed to make "independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes" – because Paramount needed Trump administration approval for a corporate merger.

So what did CBS do after losing its executive producer over editorial pressure?

It handed Norah O'Donnell a suspect's unverified document and pointed her at the President.

That's not a news organization that learned its lesson.

That's a news organization that decided the only way back to relevance was a confrontation clip that could trend for 48 hours.

Why Bill O’Reilly Called Norah O’Donnell a Disgrace to Journalism

O'Reilly spent 20 years at Fox News building the most-watched cable news program in history.

He knows the difference between journalism and performance.

Journalism is tracking down verified facts and putting them to a source.

Performance is reading a suspect's unverified claims to his alleged target on national television and continuing after he calls you a disgrace.

60 Minutes used to send correspondents after corporate fraud, government corruption, and foreign adversaries.

Now it's using a criminal suspect's words to ambush a sitting president on camera – and calling that accountability journalism.

O'Reilly's viral takedown didn't happen because he's wrong.

It happened because millions of Americans watched that same segment and thought the exact same thing – and nobody at CBS had the nerve to say it out loud.

Sources:

• Overton News, "Bill O'Reilly Destroys Norah O'Donnell Over 60 Minutes Trump Ambush," X, April 28, 2026.
• The Hill, "Trump Criticizes CBS O'Donnell for Reading WHCA Shooting Suspect's Manifesto," April 27, 2026.
• Axios, "Trump Lashes Out at 60 Minutes for Asking About Gunman Manifesto Allegations," April 27, 2026.
• CBS News, "Read the Full Transcript of Norah O'Donnell's Interview with President Trump," April 27, 2026.
• CNN, "Bill Owens: 60 Minutes Executive Producer Resigns, Citing a Loss of Independence," April 22, 2025.