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Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s “60 Minutes” debut Sunday night is making waves after what looked to some like a flirtatious exchange with CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan that began with a reference to President Donald Trump’s praise of him as “handsome” and “tough.”
“When you met President Trump back in May, he described you as handsome, tough, and said you had a strong past,” Brennan said during the interview with the Syrian leader which aired on Sunday.
Al-Sharaa cracked a smile as he replied to Brennan: “Have you any doubt about that?”
Brennan, who appeared somewhat taken aback, was determined to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand.
“I don’t have any doubt about your strong past, but it’s because of that past that you were designated as a terrorist by the American government,” she said.
The CBS interview marked al-Sharaa’s first major appearance on American television and drew a flood of online reaction.
Clips of the Trump-related exchange racked up millions of views within hours, with users joking about the Syrian president’s demeanor and dubbing him “President Rizz.”
In Gen Z slang, “rizz” is short for “charisma.” The term usually connotes a man’s ability to attract women.
One commenter on X joked: “Bro thought 60 Minutes was a dating show.”
The CBS reporter pivoted to al-Sharaa’s stint as a leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, during the Syrian civil war.
“There was that $10 million bounty on your head until just a few months ago,” Brennan said during the interview.
“It would have been a waste — it would have been money ill-spent,” al-Sharaa said of the bounty.
“We are talking about 25 years ago. I was 17 or 18 years old. The level of awareness that you have now is different from what it was 20 years ago.”
The moment, which quickly circulated on social media, came during a wide-ranging profile of Syria’s new leader — a onetime militant commander who rose to power earlier this year after Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long rule collapsed.
Assad, who is now in exile in Russia, was reportedly hospitalized recently after being poisoned while hiding out near Moscow.
Al-Sharaa, 42, has sought to rebrand himself as a reformer and statesman since his Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham forces seized control of Damascus in late 2024.
The United States formally dropped HTS’s terrorist designation in July after President Trump met with al-Sharaa in Riyadh and lifted sanctions on the new government.
Trump hailed the Syrian leader as “young,” “attractive,” and “tough,” saying he had “a real shot at holding it together” in a fractured nation still recovering from years of civil war.
The US president also encouraged al-Sharaa, who was formerly known as the militant leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, to recognize Israel under the Abraham Accords.
On “60 Minutes,” Brennan pressed al-Sharaa about his past association with extremist groups.
He insisted that his youthful militancy was a “mistake of a generation,” adding that his focus now is “rebuilding a country that has suffered too much.”
US officials have expressed cautious optimism about Syria’s political transition, though many in Washington remain skeptical of al-Sharaa’s pledges of moderation.
The White House has said it views the new Syrian government’s outreach as “a promising step toward a stable and peaceful future.”
The Post has sought comment from CBS News and the Syrian government.
