Trump Scolds 60 Minutes for 'Tough Questions' but Critics Saw 'Whiny' President

Donald Trump's interview with CBS' 60 Minutes aired on Sunday—days after the president released his campaign team's own footage of the exchange and criticized host Lesley Stahl for being "biased" against him.

At the beginning of the interview Stahl asked if Trump was ready for "some tough questions". Since Sunday's broadcast, however, some journalists and commentators have suggested that the president should not have found them particularly tricky.

But Trump complained during the program that Stahl was "so negative" and accused 60 Minutes of giving softball questions to former Vice President Joe Biden.

At one point in the interview, a producer came in to highlight how much time was left. Trump then decided to bring the conversation to an end.

Asked whether his tweets or name-calling turn people off, President Trump says: “I think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have social media.”

Moments later, he abruptly ended the interview. https://t.co/I6zv8qogcF pic.twitter.com/JYfPYOWGym — 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 26, 2020

"I think we have enough of an interview here, Hope," he said, most likely addressing his adviser, Hope Hicks. "Okay? That's enough. Let's go."

Trump told Stahl "you brought up a lot of subjects that were inappropriately brought up", to which the host responded: "Well, I said, I'm going to ask you tough questions."

The president's decision to end the interview early came after a question about whether his use of social media and name-calling was "turning people off."

After the broadcast, some Twitter-users failed to see why Trump had complained about the questions and suggested that the exchange had reflected badly on the president.

"My main takeaway from that 60 Minutes thing is that the questions weren't... really tough? Like, at all?" Atlantic writer McKay Coppins wrote on Twitter.

"I mean, the questions were fine. But this was not some kind of wildly hostile grilling that should have triggered a presidential fight-or-flight response."

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"I don't understand how anyone can watch this and draw any conclusion other than Trump is completely unfit for his job," tweeted Vox journalist Aaron Rupar, who shared a clip of Trump complaining about 60 Minutes' treatment of Biden.

"So President Trump basically said tonight on 60 Minutes that he thinks asking him 'tough questions' is unfair," tweeted Jory Rand of ABC 7 Eyewitness News.

Pod Save America host Jon Favreau, who is a former speechwriter for former President Barack Obama, was among those who described Trump's performance as "whiny".

"This 60 Minutes interview isn't Trump fighting the media - it's Trump being a whiny, aggrieved baby," Favreau wrote on Twitter. "He just seems so weak and pathetic."

"He's no longer even pretending to fight for his supporters against liberals, immigrants, the media, elites, the establishment - whatever. Donald Trump is fighting for Donald Trump. That's it," he said.

Activist and writer Amy Siskind asked if "any person watching Trump's interview with Stahl think he is anything more than a whiny child?" She added: All he did was lie and obfuscate, and when he was called on it he got up and sulked out."

Former Watergate prosecutor and MSNBC contributor Jill Wine-Banks also wrote: "Trump doesn't come across as a whiny loser. He IS a whiny loser."