Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, announced late Tuesday night that it would effectively bribe President Donald Trump by paying out a $16 million settlement for his frivolous lawsuit against the network.
In its statement about the payoff, CBS said the money will go to Trump’s future presidential library and that the network would not make a formal apology. Paramount is in the process of an $8 billion merger with Skydance and needs regulatory approval from the Trump administration.
The settlement with Trump is widely seen as a kickback that will allow the deal to go forward. With the decision to hand millions to Trump’s library, CBS joins Disney (the parent company of ABC News) as yet another part of the mainstream media that has entered into a widely criticized financial arrangement with Trump and his administration, whom they report on each day.
“Paramount just paid Trump a bribe for merger approval,” Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote on Wednesday. “When Democrats retake power, I’ll be first in line calling for federal charges. In the meantime, state prosecutors should make the corporate execs who sold out our democracy answer in court, today.”
In his lawsuit, Trump claimed that edits of a Vice President Kamala Harris interview on “60 Minutes” ahead of the 2024 presidential election were unfair and amounted to interference in the election. Legal experts said this argument had no merit.
“This is a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media. The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear: The First Amendment leaves it to journalists—and not the courts, the government or candidates for office—to decide how to report the news,” First Amendment attorney Charles Tobin told CNN last year, after Trump first filed suit.
CBS News insiders reportedly saw the writing on the wall, and in the past few months, several key figures have left the network while citing the damage that the deference to Trump would do to the outlet’s reputation.
Bill Owens, former executive producer of “60 Minutes,” left in April and said he was no longer allowed to make “independent decisions” on news coverage. Wendy McMahon, who served as CEO and president of CBS News, quit in May. In a memo to staffers, McMahon said, “It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It’s time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership.”
The crux of Trump’s complaint about CBS, which was amplified by other Republicans and Trump’s allies in right-wing media like Fox News, was specious. Trump claimed that CBS presented a false impression when they edited video of Harris, then the Democratic nominee for president. However, transcripts of the interview clearly show the edits were based around time constraints, not content.
Nonetheless, the network’s choice to pay out what amounts to a bribe has given a victory for yet another right-wing campaign that is based completely in bad faith.
In May, a group of eight Senate Democrats urged Paramount not to settle. In a letter to the company the senators urged them not to “capitulate to this dangerous move to authoritarianism.” The senators also said the suit was “an attack on the United States Constitution and the First Amendment.” Among those who were part of the letter were Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, and Ed Markey.
Sometimes, like after Trump recently demanded the press cheerlead for his decision to bomb Iran, the mainstream media has declined to fall in line. But outlets like the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post have continued to effectively cheer on Trump, while others, like The New York Times, have failed to give the public the full story on Trump’s failings and corruption.
The mainstream press joins institutions like law firms and universities that have capitulated to Trump, refusing to maintain the public trust that they have built up over decades.
Emboldened by this weakness, Trump is now using the power of the federal government to undermine the First Amendment.
And it is working.