
President Donald Trump sued CBS News over its editing of an interview with Kamala Harris. Last week, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, settled the case for $16 million.
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Sarah Ellison
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Elahe Izadi
President Donald Trump just notched a win in his decade long war on the media. For months, Trump has been in a legal fight with Paramount. That's the parent company of CBS News. Trump claimed that in the last stretch of the 2024 presidential race, CBS News aired a misleading interview with his opponent, Kamala Harris, that they edited this to make her seem more coherent than she was and that this harmed his electoral chances. Trump sued for $20 billion. CBS denied it did anything wrong. But then last week, Paramount decided to settle.
Sarah Ellison
Paramount announced that it had agreed to settle Donald Trump's lawsuit that he had launched against CBS News and they were settling for $16 million.
Elahe Izadi
Sarah Ellison is a national enterprise reporter for the Post. She says this settlement is raising alarm bells not because of the dollar amount, but because of the fact that CBS's parent company settled at all.
Sarah Ellison
This settlement was something where we saw CBS News. This is the news network of Edward R. Murrow, who famously stood up to McCarthyism. That network, which has stood up for so much about journalistic ethics and courageousness, sort of gave in to corporate pressure and pressure from the Trump administration, which was trying to sort of exert its will on not only this media institution, but lots of other media institutions and lots of other democratic institutions in society. And we just saw CBS and Paramount bend to the Trump administration's will.
Elahe Izadi
From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Elahe izadi. It's Tuesday, July 8th. Today, how Trump's war on media brought Paramount to its knees. Sarah explains the corporate pressures at play here and what that could mean for the future of journalism. Hi Sarah, thanks for joining me today.
Sarah Ellison
Thanks for having me, Sarah.
Elahe Izadi
I want to rewind and go back to how this all started between Donald Trump and CBS. So take me back to 2024 and tell me what is the origin of this lawsuit.
Sarah Ellison
So right before the election, as it often does, 60 Minutes invited both the Democratic Party candidate and the Republican Party candidate for president in for a pre election interview and Donald Trump declined that invitation. And Kamala Harris accepted the invitation and she sat down for her 60 Minutes interview on a Saturday afternoon. And that week, 60 Minutes was airing on Monday night. And so what the team at 60 minutes had to do was work all night, on Saturday night and around the clock in order to get the episode ready. And normally when 60 minutes runs sort of promotional clips of its shows, they have enough time to edit the entire episode and then cut a promotional clip from the edited episode and use that as the promo for the show. And this time, because there was such a fast turnaround between when the interview happened and when the episode aired, when CBS Face the Nation, which runs on Sunday morning, when they pulled a clip from the show, they ended up taking an answer that didn't actually air in the final 60 Minutes episode. So in the promo clip on Face the Nation, Harris gives a longer answer to a question about US Israel relations.
Emily Davies
The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including.
Sarah Ellison
And then in the final interview, 60 Minutes included one other portion of that answer that was shorter.
Emily Davies
We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.
Sarah Ellison
Now, this is extremely common in terms of, even at the Washington Post, when you're in an interview and you interview a source, and especially on television and radio, someone can give a lengthy answer and you use the relevant portion in order to give sort of the crux of the answer. When I interviewed people who were involved in this episode, they had 20 minutes to fit in what was a very lengthy interview with Kamala Harris. And so they chose a shorter, sort of more forceful and succinct response from her to air during the show. And the discrepancy between those two answers ended up exploding on right wing media and social media soon after, and became sort of a story about how 60 Minutes had tried to make Kamala Harris sound better than she did in order to swing the election for her.
Elahe Izadi
So then what happened next? You. You mentioned that this kind of became a lightning rod among many on the right. Tell me about the. The reaction to this.
Sarah Ellison
So the reaction to it is almost immediate. What you see online is that people who are supporters of Donald Trump at all levels are really upset that these two different clips have aired. And I should say, from Trump's perspective and his campaign's perspective, they were seeing and anticipating all around them media outlets that were trying to put, you know, their finger on the scale for Kamala Harris before the election, that the mainstream media or the establishment media or however you want to refer to, big media institutions were arrayed against Trump and were actively working to defeat him in the coming election.
Elahe Izadi
So then when did Trump sue CBS over this interview and promo clip?
Sarah Ellison
He sued immediately before the election. Just on the eve of the election, I mean, and then the results of the election. One of the things that is important about a lawsuit is, so this was a civil suit. He brought the case under a sort of unusual Texas law that it was a deceptive practices lawsuit. It was not a defamation suit. He had Representative Ronny Jackson as one of the plaintiffs in order for this suit to play out in Texas, which was a venue that was very friendly to his cause. And essentially that, you know, what he had talked about was that this was an effort to deceive the electorate and to get Kamala Harri. When Trump first filed this lawsuit, he filed it for $10 billion against CBS and Paramount, and then he upped that to $20 billion. So it was an enormous financial number that was headlining this lawsuit.
Elahe Izadi
Okay, but then he's elected and he becomes president. What happens next?
Sarah Ellison
So Donald Trump, you know, has spent 10 years talking about how the media lies. He was speaking out about how, you know, if he got back into office, he was sort of very determined to make media institutions pay. And in fact, you know, there were analyses done in the two months before the election. Trump attacked the media more than a hundred times in the week before the election. He threatened to sue the New York Times. His campaign lodged a Federal Election Commission complaint against the Washington Post. He demanded and received equal time from NBC after NBC featured Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live the week before the election. So there were a lot of signs that Donald Trump wanted to sort of take the fight to media organizations in the fall of 2024.
Elahe Izadi
Yeah. And then even after he won the presidency, I remember one of the biggest moments here in this storyline was that ABC News settled the lawsuit that Trump brought against that company. And that was kind of like a. For people interested in this issue, it was kind of an earth shaking moment.
Sarah Ellison
Exactly. I mean, this was a lawsuit that had been in the works for months, and I believe it was lodged in March. And then in mid December, ABC News announced that it had agreed to pay $15 million to Trump's presidential foundation, plus $1 million in legal fees. And that was to settle a defamation suit that he brought against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos, who is one of their regular morning show hosts, over an interview that George Stephanopoulos had done with Representative Nancy Mace in which he had questioned her about her support for Donald Trump in light of the fact that she, a sexual assault survivor, was supporting a man who had been found liable for sexual abuse. And instead of using the term sexual abuse, Stephanopoulos repeatedly in his interview with Nancy Mace, said that Donald Trump had been found liable for rape. Now, the judge in that case had sort of made things a little bit muddy because the judge had said that essentially what Donald Trump had been found liable for would commonly be understood as rap, but under New York law, it was sexual abuse. So there was a little bit of wiggle room in the way that that decision could be interpreted. But nevertheless, ABC agreed to pay $15 million, plus 1 million in legal fees, and they issued an apology. And that was pretty surprising, because at this point, Donald Trump wasn't yet a sitting president, but he was the president elect. And it was clear. And my who I spoke to around that settlement mentioned that ABC is owned by Disney. Disney is a company that has definitely had its run ins with conservatives and with Donald Trump. And they did not want to be in active litigation with the sitting President of the United States. It's not something that any private company would really relish doing, but nor have we seen many presidents or president elects pursue this kind of legal strategy in which they are suing private entities that are gonna have to live under the regulatory state and the legislative apparatus that the President has a pretty large influence over.
Elahe Izadi
So then after ABC settled, we still had this CBS lawsuit continuing. But I wonder, how strong of a lawsuit was this? Did the lawyers you speak with give you any indication on how likely this lawsuit that Trump brought against CBS News would've succeeded in court?
Sarah Ellison
I mean, almost to a lawyer, no one thought this was a particularly strong case. There were a few things that made this a pretty weak case. One is that CBS hadn't made any errors. Two, Donald Trump won the election. So even if CBS had done something dishonest with this interview, and no one at CBS says that they did, and they said that they followed all of the same sort of protocol protocols that they always do. Donald Trump was not harmed by this interview. He won the election. And so no lawyers that I spoke to thought that it was a strong case, and it was a pretty shocking thing that they agreed to settle for what they did.
Elahe Izadi
After the break, Sarah explains how CBS's journalistic interest and corporate pressures collided. We'll be right back.
Emily Davies
My name is Emily Davies, and I cover the federal workforce and Trump administration for the Washington Post. I think journalism at its best is a conversation with both readers and with sources taking what we learn from people who are in powerful positions and sharing it with people who care. A story I wrote that resonated widely was about a federal worker who lives in upstate Michigan who voted for President Trump and was later fired by him as part of his cuts. The story got inside of her head how she was reckoning with her own vote and how the choices made by the candidate she believed in were hurting her life. And I think that story helped people understand how directly and personally people can feel the effects of decisions made in Washington. Working for the Washington Post means being in the center of the stories that matter most. Subscribers support this work. Learn more@washingtonpost.com subscribe I'm Emily Davies and I'm one of the people behind the Post.
Elahe Izadi
Okay, Sarah, you said before that the legal experts you spoke with were pretty unanimous in seeing Trump's legal case against CBS News is pretty weak, which leads me to wonder why CBS would agree to settle at all. So what is the context here? You mentioned ABC News and Disney. Tell me what was going on with the CBS parent company here?
Emily Davies
Paramount.
Sarah Ellison
So Paramount had been in the process of merging with Skydance Media, which means basically selling itself to skydance for around $8 billion. And Paramount has been for decades controlled by the Redstone family. Sumner Redstone was sort of the equivalent to Rupert Murdoch. He was this mogul who had a very large influence on the media business for decades. His daughter, Sherry Redstone, is now the controlling shareholder in Paramount, and she was interested in selling this company and had identified Skydance Media as a willing and appropriate sort of buyer. Skydance is controlled by David Ellison, and David Ellison is the son of the billionaire and Trump ally Larry Ellison. So it was a situation where in order to get this merger approved, the US Government needed to give it regulatory approval. The Federal Communications Commission had to approve it. And so the even though CBS doesn't have any real business before the government, the parent company Paramount had a very lucrative financial transaction that required government approval. And that was the pain point for Paramount when they were going before the Trump administration. I should say that the FCC has traditionally been a more independent government agency than the Defense Department or the State Department. But in this iteration, when Trump took office, he put someone by the name of Brendan Carr in as chairman of the fcc. And Carr sort of makes no secret of his support for Donald Trump. He wears a gold pin of Trump's face on his lapel and has talked pretty openly about his support for Trump's policies and his ideas of media regulation and oversight and so Carr is someone who has said from the beginning that his oversight of CBS has absolutely nothing to do with this pending acquisition. But nevertheless, the executives at Paramount and the journalists at CBS saw the lawsuit and the FCC oversight of this deal as intertwined. Now, Brendan Carr has said that they are absolutely separate and has denied that there's any kind of relationship. But still, that was a big fear, that if Paramount didn't settle this suit, that they weren't going to get their merger approved.
Elahe Izadi
Okay, so tell me about that. How was Paramount dealing with this pressure? Because I think for a lot of people, they're accustomed to, you know, traditional mainstream media organizations sort of holding firm and insisting we didn't do anything wrong or defending their journalists, especially in a situation like this where there were no factual. So what happens? How is Paramount dealing with this pressure? On the one end of, you need to stand for journalism, you need to hold the line. And, oh, but we have this big corporate merger we're trying to see through.
Sarah Ellison
So Sherry Redstone had been sort of eyeing the output of CBS News for a while. That being said, normally the output of 60 minutes is something that is really entirely controlled by 60 minutes itself. It's got this, you know, vaunted reputation. It's sort of the crown jewel of CBS News. And the first real warning sign here was when the longtime executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, stepped down in April. And he described his reasoning as that he had sort of lost the freedom to handle the show the way he saw fit. And then after that, even in a sort of more surprising move, the head of CBS News, who is herself a business person, she is not a journalist, but Wendy McMahon, who was running CBS News, also resigned.
Elahe Izadi
Was it because of what was perceived as meddling by Sherry Redstone? Was it because of, you know, murmurs people were hearing about potentially a settlement with Trump? Why was this happening?
Sarah Ellison
These resignations came partly because Sherry Redstone had installed a standards executive who was actually the former head of CBS News, named Susan Zurinsky, over Bill Owens to sort of help monitor the decisions that the show was making. And neither Bill owens nor Wendy McMahon were in favor of settling this case. And it was something that the journalists, not just at 60 minutes, but also at CBS News, had been sort of dreading for some time. So it was both the concern that Paramount sort of corporate business executives were reaching into the newsroom and meddling with the output of 60 minutes, and also that they were doing that in order to get this deal through and to settle this lawsuit with Donald Trump. So it was just. I can't overstate the amount of fear and dissatisfaction that the journalists at CBS News felt about the forces that were at play here. And Sherrie Redstone, from the beginning said, we have to settle this because you cannot operate a business in this environment. She might be right, which is that if you have a president elect who is willing to go to war with a private company, no private company is going to want to be in ongoing litigation with a sitting president. So that's a huge amount of leverage, no matter who is in that role. But no other president has been willing to take on companies in this way before this moment.
Elahe Izadi
So then what were the conversations like at the corporate level or among lawyers for Paramount and the Trump team? How did they reach this $16 million settlement?
Sarah Ellison
So Paramount and the Trump team entered into professional mediation in April to try to resolve this case. And we had been hearing for months that this case was about to settle, and it just hadn't settled. So there was a huge amount of pressure from the. And from Trump allies and the Trump legal team. But also there seemed to be a growing amount of pressure coming from lawmakers on the left who were writing to Paramount and saying that they had real concerns that the company might be engaging in, you know, conduct that would appease the. The Trump administration. Is that.
Elahe Izadi
Is that legal?
Sarah Ellison
If that was true, I mean, it's unclear. There was a concern that they could be violating bribery laws. So if it was that the Paramount officials were making concessions in a sort of quid pro quo arrangement to influence Donald Trump, then they would be potentially breaking federal law. They would also be liable for shareholder lawsuits. I mean, there could be shareholders who were saying, why are you spending this amount of money to settle a lawsuit you could easily win in court. So there were sort of a whole array of concerns that Paramount was facing. I should add one thing which is just that one of the reasons why this number so closely mimics the ABC settlement is that internally, the executives at CBS really saw that number, you know, the $16 million, which is exactly what ABC had settled for. They thought if they paid more than abc, that would give even more grist for the bribery argument.
Elahe Izadi
I see. So they were trying to make this problem go away, but do it in such a fashion where they couldn't be accused in a lawsuit or just even reputationally of bribery. I mean, that's pretty remarkable.
Sarah Ellison
Yeah. I mean, you don't see it every day, that's for sure.
Elahe Izadi
As CBS or Paramount said why they.
Sarah Ellison
Settled, Paramount did not specify in a statement why they had settled this suit. But George Cheeks, who runs CBS and is a co CEO of Paramount, he defended the settlement in a call with shareholders the morning after they had settled. And he said that these kinds of settlements are very common to, quote, avoid the high and somewhat unpredictable cost of legal defense, end quote. And they were trying to avoid being mired in uncertainty and distraction. So companies settle all the time for all kinds of different reasons. And it's normally accepted corporate practice. Except that journalism, while not being a particularly great business, is also an unusual business in that journalists and the people who rely on them really do care about their independence and don't want to see journalists sort of doing the bidding of their corporate parents. And so it was that dynamic that really set this all up for such scrutiny and such attention.
Elahe Izadi
Sarah, you mentioned this idea of running 60 minutes independently, but it's probably useful to explain how newsrooms typically function in relation to their corporate bosses.
Sarah Ellison
Sure. So typically at news organizations, the news gathering is supposed to be an independently produced product. You know, it would be a scandal, for instance, if a newsroom decided not to do a story because an advertiser had issued some sort of threat. But it's also true that media owners typically exert some influence over an editorial product. And we usually see that in, you know, opinion programming or in opinion pages. So, for example, at newspapers, the editorial page is often seen as a reflection of the owner's interests. And you can see that probably most clearly with Rupert Murdoch owned properties like the New York Post or the Wall Street Journal. Here at the Washington Post, the owner, Jeff Bezos, who is also the founder of Amazon, decided not long before the presidential election that our editorial board would not run a drafted endorsement for Kamala Harris as part of a new policy to not endorse presidential candidates going forward. And he later said that the opinion page would be focused on two core principles, personal liberties and free markets. But at cbs, their journalists were sensing heightened attention from their corporate owners on a lot of their stories in a way that they hadn't seen before.
Elahe Izadi
Yeah, I mean, what kind of reputational harm has Paramount or CBS suffered as a result of taking this approach, of reaching this settlement?
Sarah Ellison
This is a news organization that has obviously come down from where its power used to be in the culture. I mean, this is the network of Edward R. Murrow, sort of defined the pinnacle of broadcast journalism of a certain era. And they're capitulating in this case, which doesn't have a lot of legal merit, to a White House that has put sufficient pressure on CBS's corporate parent to have them make a kind of business calculation. So they're sort of sacrificing the journalistic integrity of CBS to get this deal done. At least that's the view of almost all of the journalists inside of cbs, as well as sort of people who have been watching this case. First Amendment attorneys, legal experts, journalistic experts. And it's a moment that does make some people question the independence of CBS News. But in general, I think that what CBS does from here on out is going to define what their level of journalistic independence actually is.
Elahe Izadi
This also seems like a pretty extraordinary victory for Trump. I mean, he got a settlement on a case most legal experts said was very weak. He also got one from ABC News, plus an apology from ABC News. What do these settlements mean for him?
Sarah Ellison
I mean, anyone who has paid attention to Donald Trump's history of suing media organizations, he has had a really bad record. He was almost never successful. And so he's been on like a hot streak in terms of winning lawsuits with media companies. And it's indicative of just how powerful it is to sit in the Oval Office and have launched these cases as a private citizen. So in the first five months of his second administration, Trump has forced Disney, which owns ABC News, social media giants Meta and X, several top law firms, a slew of different universities, you know, have all sort of bent to his will and given in to his demands in order to survive in an environment where the federal government has an enormous amount of influence over all of these entities. If I were sitting on Trump's legal team, I would not see any reason to slow down in making these kinds of allegations against media institutions. So I'm going to be on the lookout for other places where Trump and his allies can press their advantage.
Elahe Izadi
Well, Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. I appreciate it.
Sarah Ellison
Thank you.
Elahe Izadi
Sarah Ellison is a national enterprise reporter for the Post. That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. Now is a great time to subscribe to the Washington Post. Our Fourth of July sale is still underway. That means you can get a core subscription for just $29 for the first year. This is a limited time offer. Again, only $29 for your entire first year. It renews at $120 annually. And as always, you can cancel at any time. To get that $29 deal, go to washingtonpost.com subscribe you can also look for a subscription link in our show notes. Today's show was produced by Peter Bresnan. It was mixed by Sam Baer and edited by Rena Flores. Thanks to Noah Bierman. I'm Elahe Izadi. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from the Washington Post.
Emily Davies
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Post Reports: How Trump's Media War Came for CBS
Released on July 8, 2025 by The Washington Post
In the July 8, 2025 episode of Post Reports, hosts Martine Powers and Elahe Izadi delve into the ramifications of former President Donald Trump's prolonged campaign against mainstream media, focusing specifically on his legal battle with CBS News. The episode, titled "How Trump's Media War Came for CBS," provides an in-depth analysis of the settlement between Paramount, CBS's parent company, and Trump, exploring the broader implications for journalistic integrity and corporate influence in media.
The conflict began in the final stages of the 2024 presidential election. CBS's flagship program, 60 Minutes, conducted an interview with Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent. Trump alleged that CBS had manipulated the interview to portray Harris more favorably, thereby undermining his electoral prospects. Claiming deceptive practices, Trump filed a substantial civil lawsuit seeking $20 billion in damages.
Notable Quote:
“Donald Trump just notched a win in his decade long war on the media.”
— Elahe Izadi [00:29]
Contrary to expectations—given the lawsuit's perceived weakness—Paramount agreed to settle the lawsuit for $16 million. This decision sent shockwaves through the journalistic community, not because of the financial figure but due to the precedential capitulation by a storied news institution.
Notable Quote:
“CBS News... gave in to corporate pressure and pressure from the Trump administration.”
— Sarah Ellison [01:37]
Sarah Ellison, a national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post, expressed concern over Paramount's decision to settle, highlighting the historical significance of CBS News' legacy in upholding journalistic ethics.
Legal experts interviewed by Ellison unanimously regarded Trump's case against CBS as notably weak. The lawsuit's foundation rested on a specific Texas law categorizing it as a deceptive practices claim rather than defamation, which diluted its potency.
Notable Quote:
“No one thought this was a particularly strong case... it was a pretty shocking thing that they agreed to settle.”
— Sarah Ellison [12:39]
Furthermore, Trump's victory in the presidential election undermined his claims of media bias affecting electoral outcomes. Legal analysts pointed out that even if CBS had erred, Trump's electoral success negated his primary grievance.
Paramount was concurrently navigating a significant merger with Skydance Media, valued at approximately $8 billion. The deal required approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which, under the Trump administration, was led by Brendan Carr—a staunch Trump supporter.
Notable Quote:
“Paramount had been in the process of merging with Skydance Media... the FCC oversight of this deal as intertwined.”
— Sarah Ellison [15:14]
The potential withholding of regulatory approval loomed as a strategic leverage point for the Trump administration, exerting intense pressure on Paramount to resolve the lawsuit favorably. This convergence of legal and corporate maneuvers placed CBS News in a precarious position, balancing journalistic integrity against substantial business interests.
Amidst mounting pressures, key figures within CBS News began to resign. Bill Owens, the long-time executive producer of 60 Minutes, departed citing loss of editorial freedom. Subsequently, Wendy McMahon, the head of CBS News, also resigned, signaling deep-seated conflicts between journalistic autonomy and corporate directives.
Notable Quote:
“The journalists at CBS News felt a huge amount of fear and dissatisfaction about the forces at play.”
— Sarah Ellison [19:47]
These departures underscored the internal turmoil and the diminishing autonomy of the newsroom in the face of corporate and political pressures.
Paramount engaged in professional mediation with Trump's legal team starting in April, aiming to resolve the dispute without protracted litigation. Settling for $16 million mirrored ABC News' earlier settlement with Trump, positioning CBS to mitigate further legal and reputational risks without escalating accusations of wrongdoing.
Notable Quote:
“They thought if they paid more than ABC, that would give even more grist for the bribery argument.”
— Sarah Ellison [22:34]
By aligning the settlement amount with ABC's resolution, Paramount sought to avoid speculation of undue influence or bribery, maintaining a semblance of corporate propriety.
The settlement marked a significant, albeit controversial, victory for Trump in his ongoing media confrontation. Legal and journalistic experts voiced concerns over the potential erosion of media independence, fearing that corporate entities might increasingly bow to political pressures.
Notable Quote:
“They’re sacrificing the journalistic integrity of CBS to get this deal done.”
— Sarah Ellison [26:53]
The episode highlights how such capitulations may set dangerous precedents, potentially emboldening future attempts to manipulate media narratives through legal and corporate means.
Post Reports underscores the delicate balance between maintaining journalistic integrity and navigating corporate and political landscapes. The settlement between Paramount and Trump not only signifies a tactical win for the former president but also raises critical questions about the future of media independence in an increasingly polarized political environment.
Notable Quote:
“This is a moment that does make some people question the independence of CBS News.”
— Sarah Ellison [26:53]
As the media continues to adapt to external pressures, the implications of such settlements will likely reverberate across the industry, shaping the contours of journalistic practice and corporate governance in the years to come.
Produced by The Washington Post’s Post Reports Team
For those interested in the full discussion, subscribing to The Washington Post provides access to exclusive reporting and in-depth analyses on pivotal issues shaping our society.