Paramount Global's agreement to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Trump over a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Harris is reverberating across the media industry and highlighting Trump's success in using the power of the federal government to pressure news outlets.
The settlement, which had been speculated about for months, could also spark further litigation and headaches for Paramount, which is trying to secure before the end of the year a multi-billion-dollar merger with fellow entertainment giant Skydance that will require approval by Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Here are the five takeaways from the Paramount, Trump settlement fallout:
Paramount admits no fault, but pays up
Wednesday’s settlement notably does not include a statement of apology or regret.
Trump’s suit claimed CBS News intentionally edited Harris’s answer to a question on the war in Gaza to cast her in a more coherent light, a premise the network routinely rejected in court documents and public statements.
As part of its agreement to settle Trump’s lawsuit, Paramount said “60 Minutes” will release transcripts of future interviews with eligible U.S. presidential candidates after they air, “subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns.”
The agreement shows executives at Paramount were unwilling to threaten the company’s impending Skydance merger with a drawn-out legal fight with the president.
In a statement to The Hill only weeks ago, the company brushed aside the suggestion that the impending Skydance deal, worth an estimated $7 billion, would affect the outcome of the case.
“This lawsuit is completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process,” the company said.” We will abide by the legal process to defend our case.”
In the end, a payment of $16 million to Trump’s future presidential library and a promise to be more transparent with interview transcripts turned out to be enough to keep the case out of court.
Press freedoms groups outraged
First Amendment advocates and press freedom organizations are universally condemning Paramount’s agreement to settle, with many arguing the decision could set a dangerous precedent for future litigation against major media companies by government officials.
“Today is a sad day for press freedom. Paramount should have fought this extortionate lawsuit in court, and it would have prevailed,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “Now Trump’s presidential library will be a permanent monument to Paramount’s surrender, a continual reminder of its failure to defend freedoms that are essential to our democracy.”
Tim Richardson of PEN America, one of the largest first amendment advocacy groups in the country, called the decision “a spineless capitulation.”
“This was a moment to defend press freedom and support reporters targeted by a frivolous legal attack,” he said. “Instead, Paramount chose appeasement to bolster its finances, sending a dangerous message that media outlets can be pressured into submission if corporate parents find their profits at risk from government action in unrelated areas.”
Several observers spent the day Wednesday calling to mind a similar settlement Disney agreed to pay Trump late last year to dismiss a defamation case the president brought against ABC News.
That suit stemmed from a segment in which anchor George Stephanopoulos falsely claimed that Trump had been convicted of sexual assault against author E. Jean Carroll in a New York case, instead of being found liable for sexual battery and defaming Carroll for denying the incident, as actually happened. That incident resulted in a $15 million payment and an apology.
“Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. This settlement will only embolden the president to continue his flurry of baseless lawsuits against the press — and against the American people’s ability to hear the news free from government intrusion,” said Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
In a statement to The Hill on Wednesday afternoon, a Paramount spokesperson defended the company's decision.
“Companies often settle litigation to avoid the high and somewhat unpredictable costs of legal defense, the risk of an adverse judgment that could result in significant financial or reputational damage, and the disruption to business operations that prolonged legal battles can cause," the spokesperson said. "Settlement offers a negotiated resolution that allows companies to focus on their core objectives rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction.”
The president and his allies, meanwhile, are celebrating the episode as an “accountability” moment for mainstream news outlets that they often paint as out of touch and overly hostile.
Team Trump takes a victory lap
Trump has for months attacked news outlets over their coverage of his second administration and threatened to use the power of his FCC to scrutinize the broadcast licenses of networks he says cover him unfairly.
But the CBS suit was a new salvo in Trump’s war on the press, posing a direct threat to a major media conglomerate’s bottom line at a time of widespread financial pain across the news business.
Trump’s FCC chair, Brendan Carr, had indicated in public statements the Harris interview edit could have constituted a legitimate news distortion complaint, posing a major hurdle to the Paramount/Skydance transaction, a deal Paramount needs to clear to avoid defaulting on its massive debt.
Trump’s legal team suggested Wednesday it hopes Paramount’s agreement to avoid a trial will send a message to other media outlets about news coverage.
“With this record settlement, President Donald J. Trump delivers another win for the American people as he, once again, holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit,” a spokesperson for the Trump legal team told The Hill. “CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle. President Trump will always ensure that no one gets away with lying to the American People as he continues on his singular mission to Make America Great Again.”
Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on the press in recent weeks, threatening to sue The New York Times over its reporting on U.S. military strikes on Iran and suggesting the Department of Justice could “look into” CNN’s reporting on his immigration agenda.
Critics allege bribery at play
Some Democrats and critics of the president warned in the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s settlement any payout to avoid a trial taken together with the pending Paramount/Skydance transaction could be seen as a bribe.
A group of Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote to Paramount last month asking the company to “not capitulate to this dangerous move to authoritarianism,” and defend itself in court.
A group of state lawmakers in California went a step further, writing to executive at Paramount saying they would launch an investigation into the matter to ensure “the integrity of California’s communications economy, ensuring that public-facing media enterprises compete based on content and quality, not influence, capitulation, or political appeasement.”
After Wednesday’s settlement was reached, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D- Mass.) issued a blistering statement saying the deal “could be bribery in plain sight.”
“Paramount has refused to provide answers to a congressional inquiry, so I’m calling for a full investigation into whether or not any anti-bribery laws were broken,” Warren said.
And some at Trump’s FCC are also raising concerns about the fate of the Paramount/Skydance deal now that a settlement agreement has been reached.
FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez said in a statement shared with The Hill the settlement “casts a long shadow over the integrity of the transaction pending before,” the department.
“Approving this transaction behind closed doors and under the cover of bureaucratic process would be a shameful outcome that denies the American people the transparency and accountability they deserve,” she said. “Especially when press freedom is at stake.”
Will the settlement send a chill through newsrooms?
Paramount’s settlement is likely to make some staffers at CBS unhappy with their corporate ownership, but the long-term effects of the episode on the broader media ecosystem remain to be seen.
During his second term, Trump has granted exclusive interviews to friendly outlets on a regular basis, while his White House has sought to ban certain wire services from the building’s press pool and pack briefings with media members sympathetic to his agenda.
The president has increasingly singled out individual reports by name, and called for the firing of journalists he says are trying to undermine his agenda.
Members of his administration have also vowed to crack down on federal workers leaking to journalists and suggested media members obtaining information from confidential sources could be open to prosecution or litigation.
It all creates an environment of heightened stress for members of the mainstream press; a trend a growing number of legal observers expect to result in a more emboldened anti-media posture on the right, and in politics more generally.
“Some in the media and business world are already trying to justify this as a necessary — or even savvy — business move. They couldn’t be more wrong,” Democratic attorney and frequent Trump critic Marc Elias wrote of the Paramount settlement. “If our largest media outlets will not stand up to Donald Trump’s baseless lawsuits, why should we believe they will stand up to him in their reporting?”
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