Politics
JUST IN: Paramount Forced To Pay Trump Millions In ’60 Minutes’ Suit
President Donald Trump will receive a significant personal payout after his attorneys and representatives from Paramount reached a settlement in his lawsuit alleging that CBS’s “60 Minutes” deceptively edited its 2024 interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Details began to trickle out on Tuesday as lawyers for both sides confirmed to the media that they were in the “advanced” stages of finalizing a settlement. The news was made official on Wednesday morning when the New York Times reported that Trump will receive $16 million in compensation for being personally injured by the media outlet’s favorable coverage of his presidential opponent.
The settlement marks an extraordinary concession by one of the country’s most well-known news outlets, and it comes as Paramount appeals to the Trump administration to approve a purchase by Skydance valued in the billions of dollars. Executives reportedly feared that fighting the Trump lawsuit would make administration officials leery of signing off on a deal that could otherwise be construed as a media monopoly.
Paramount told the outlet that the payments will go toward covering the president’s legal fees and that any additional compensation will be put toward establishing his presidential library after he leaves office.
On its face, the lawsuit was believed by legal observers to be an easy one for Paramount to fight. First Amendment protections give media outlets wide latitude to frame their stories, and nothing contained in the “60 Minutes” interview with Harris was demonstrably false.
However, Shari Redstone, the longtime family heir of Paramount, made it known early on that she favored exploring a settlement with Trump in anticipation of the Skydance acquisition.
Two people familiar with the final days leading up to the deal say lawyers for both sides worked through the weekend to prepare for a discovery process that would have seen CBS turn over a trove of documents about how the Harris interview was planned and conducted.
Another looming change complicated matters: Paramount was preparing to overhaul its board of directors this week, which could have injected new dissent about the deal.
A spokesperson for Trump called the settlement “another win for the American people” and demonstrative of his ability to hold “the fake news media accountable” for their reporting.
“CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle,” the spokesman said.
The $16 million sum is the same amount paid by ABC News following a lawsuit Trump filed after George Stephanopoulos repeatedly claimed Trump was found criminally guilty of rape. He lost a civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll.
Paramount was reportedly concerned that paying any higher amount may open the door to shareholders accusing executives of bribing Trump.
The deal is a dark final chapter to the Redstone family’s ownership of Paramount. Soon, they plan to sell their stake to David Ellison, the son of famed entrepreneur Larry Ellison and a financial supporter of Trump.
Brendan Carr, the president’s appointee to run the Federal Communications Commission, said that his decision whether to approve Skydance’s purchase of Paramount was not influenced by the lawsuit. Paramount likewise denied that its decision to pay Trump rather than fight him in court was an unrelated business decision.
