Pressure mounting on Paramount from CBS stars, Dem lawmakers as company considers settling $20B Trump lawsuit
Paramount Global is facing mounting pressure from CBS stars and Dem lawmakers as it considers settling a high-stakes lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump.
nypost.com
10 May 2025 ~~ By Joseph A. Wolfsohn
Pressure is mounting on Paramount Global from both the inside and outside as it considers settling a high-stakes lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump.
Lawyers for Trump and Paramount entered mediation last week, signaling the company’s potential willingness to resolve the whopping $20 billion suit filed by Trump accusing CBS News of election interference over its handling of the “60 Minutes” interview last year with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
That interview, which was part of a primetime election special that also featured her Democratic running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz,
earned an Emmy nomination last week for Outstanding Edited Interview. Trump slammed the “totally discredited” Emmys on Truth Social in response.
A group of Democratic lawmakers, including Senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., made a direct plea to Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, to not settle the lawsuit, saying it would be a “grave mistake.”
~Snip~
Trump has had a string of settlement victories in recent months with ABC News, X and Meta from other legal battles waged by the now-president.
The CBS lawsuit stems from the editing of an exchange Harris had with “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker, who asked her why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t “listening” to the Biden administration.
~Snip~
Earlier this year, FCC Chair
Brendan Carr ordered CBS News to hand over the unedited transcript of the interview as part of its investigation into whether the network violated the FCC’s “news distortion” policy after a complaint was filed. CBS had refused to release the unedited transcript when the controversy first began.
The released raw transcript and footage showed that both sets of Harris’ comments came from the same response, but CBS News had aired only the first half of her response in the “Face the Nation” preview clip and aired the second half during the primetime special.
Commentary:
My question is, why isn’t there a MAGA backload of these types of lawsuits against the Quisling Media? Every day is a new political lie affecting elections, either immediately or down the road.
There's nothing "balanced" about the press these days. Their neutrality was gone in 2016. Now they reap what they sow.
Note that there's no mention of the fact that the FCC could revoke CBS broadcast license. In effect putting them out of business.
The license to broadcast is in the public interest.
If a broadcaster covers up for one of the major candidates for the office of the presidency that can't put together a coherent thought during an interview, they're not broadcasting in the public interest. It is in the public interest that the airing is transparent so the voting public knows the truth.
BTW, The “stars” referred to in the headline are Maddow and Stephen Colbert.
In the end, I guess CBS couldn't judge shop to get a Judge to uphold their appeal.