The legal representatives of the President of the United States, as a private citizen, and the owner of CBS News & Stations have come to an agreement that ends a legal tussle between the company seeking to complete its merger with Skydance Media and the person who is again Commander-in-Chief.
While an official announcement doesn’t appear on the Paramount Global investor relations website, CBS News shared the news at precisely 1:19am Eastern, leading nearly every major mainstream news organization to spread the word that the highly publicized and politically divisive battle is over.
And, it comes after an executive leadership shuffle across CBS News & Stations led to high-profile dismissals while, separately, the FCC reinstated a “news distortion” complaint against CBS filed by a conservative political advocacy group.
The settlement amount — $16 million — is a fraction of what Mr. Donald Trump, who filed the suit before returning to the White House, wanted from Paramount Global. In his view, the defamation of him by CBS News was worthy of a $20 billion penalty, based on his interpretation of 60 Minutes reports he disapproved of.
And, the settlement amount is just slightly above the $15 million offer reportedly presented to Trump’s legal team in late May. That’s a bit of a win for the CBS News & Stations parent, as the man who is now President again sought at least $25 million — along with a formal apology from CBS News.
“The settlement did not include an apology,” the CBS News story that first shared the news of the $16 million agreement states.
The report also confirms that Paramount Global worked with a mediator to resolve the lawsuit.
Under the agreement, the $16 million will be allocated to Trump’s future presidential library, along with plaintiffs’ fees and costs.
Indeed, neither President Trump nor his co-plaintiff, House of Representatives Member Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.), will be directly paid as part of the settlement. Jackson’s connection to the lawsuit is indirectly related to the filing of the lawsuit in Amarillo, Tex., which CBS News notes is within a federal district court territory where a 2019 Trump appointee is the sole judge.
The lawsuit was filed by then-former President Trump on the grounds that CBS News tweaked an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, a move Trump believed was done to make her more favorable with potential voters. The 60 Minutes interview involved a question asked of Harris about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A slightly different answer to the same question appeared on Face the Nation compared to what aired later in the day on 60 Minutes.
As CBS News & Stations stated, this was not “news distortion,” but rather a normal practice in which editing of interviews is done so they can be tighter and fit a specific time allotment on a broadcast. Transcripts and the raw pre-production video were shared with the public and the FCC to make its point.
Moving forward, Paramount agreed that 60 Minutes will release transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates in the future, “subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns” — a concession that helped seal the deal on the settlement.
That said, the lawsuit resulted in the departure of 60 Minutes Executive Producer Bill Owens and, just weeks later, Wendy McMahon as President/CEO of CBS News and Stations.
McMahon’s exit also followed the departure earlier this year of Adrienne Roark from CBS News and Stations, where she served as President of Editorial and Newsgathering, to become TEGNA’s next Chief Content Officer. Then, there is the exit of Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews as CBS News President, which was announced in July 2024.
As a result, George Cheeks, the co-CEO of Paramount Global and president and CEO of CBS, took the reins, noting that that CBS News President Tom Cibrowski and CBS Stations President Jennifer Mitchell would now report to him.
With the $16 million settlement now affirmed, all eyes are likely on the FCC as Paramount Global’s $8 billion Skydance Media merger hangs in the balance. That has individuals tied with cable TV networks once under the Viacom banner and CBS News & Stations employees biting their nails, as a reduction-in-force initiative on top of budget trimming seen across the company over the last year is a worry.
Upon word of the Paramount Global settlement, the company’s share price fell by 2 cents to $13.14 in early Wednesday trading on the Nasdaq GlobalSelect market.
