Truckling to President Donald Trump, Paramount has agreed to settle the president’s frivolous lawsuit over the editing of CBS News’s 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris.
Some executives at the media conglomerate reportedly desired this outcome, for it would clear the way for a megamerger requiring the Trump administration’s approval, despite surely emboldening his war against the press.
As part of the settlement, Paramount will reportedly not apologize or admit wrongdoing—cold comfort, considering it will, per The New York Times, fork up $16 million, including to Trump’s legal fees and planned presidential library, and release written transcripts of future 60 Minutes interviews with presidential candidates.
Trump alleged that the show deceptively edited an answer from Kamala Harris on Israel during an October 2024 interview. Of course, 60 Minutes, and other news programs, customarily edit politicians’ remarks for concision, including those of the notorious prolix president.
The settlement paves the way for a multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance, which requires the approval of Trump’s Federal Communications Commission. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden in May wrote to Paramount in May that “Paramount may be engaging in potentially illegal conduct involving the Trump Administration in exchange for approval of its megamerger with Skydance.”
Paramount’s supine settlement starkly contrasts a court filing from just last Monday, in which the company called the “meritless lawsuit” an attempt “to evade bedrock First Amendment principles establishing that public officials like themselves cannot hold news organizations like CBS liable for the exercise of editorial judgment.”
Previously, the company had called the lawsuit “an affront to the First Amendment … without basis in law or fact.”
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