REPORT: ‘60 Minutes’ Staff In Meltdown Mode After Trump’s Big Legal Win

The staff of CBS’ “60 Minutes” are wailing after President Donald Trump locked down a sizable sum to settle a defamation lawsuit stemming from the show’s coverage of the 2024 election.

Although ready to move forward, producers of the storied news program are still unsettled by Paramount’s decision to pay Trump $16 million to settle a suit alleging that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited its interview last year with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Last week the Federal Communications Commission and its pro-Trump chair, Brendan Carr, allowed Paramount to merge with Skydance, an $8 billion deal that critics allege wouldn’t have happened without the personal payment to Trump.

In a tease of Harris’s interview that aired during “Face the Nation,” she is heard giving a more cogent answer to a question from correspondent Bill Whitaker about Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. But a full answer that later aired was a “word salad” that made Harris appear much less steady with her foreign policy chops.

A “60 Minutes” producer admitted the show’s team has been “psychologically and mentally worn down” by the battle, which hit its zenith with resignations by longtime executive director Bill Owens and former CBS CEO Wendy McMahon.

News of the settlement only came one day prior to its announcement, according to insiders who were present on a hastily arranged Zoom call by fill-in executive producer Tanya Simon.

“The prevailing sentiment was like, this is what we were expecting. But it is a travesty,” the producer said.

“A quote that has kind of been circulating around is, ‘You can love your company, but your company won’t love you back,'” they chuckled.

Although understandably furious about the massive payday Trump is set to inherit, the “60 Minutes” sources say no one else is preparing to rage-quit the show like Owens did — but that some might have if CBS had issued a public apology for their interview with Harris.

“I think there would have been a more dramatic response to the settlement if there had been an apology. I think that would have forced some resignations,” they said. “That was a bright line for a lot of people.”

Still uncertain is what new editorial mandates by CBS will mean for a show that has cherished its independence at the network for decades.

“Nothing has come down to us to say, like, this is the decision, this is why it was made and this is how you will move forward,” the producer said. “It’s not very comforting when you feel like nobody really knows what’s going on and no one from Paramount or CBS is communicating directly with- I mean, they are communicating, obviously, with the news division, but not in a way that trickles down to us.”

Producers predict the show’s team will return from their summer hiatus “energized” and “ready to work.” They added that morale was “boosted” by the selection of Simon to serve as a temporary executive producer.

“This is a positive signal in terms of the future of ‘60 Minutes’ being able to stay true to its founding principles,” the producer told Fox News about Simon’s appointment.