CBS News has been under fire from The Usual Suspects for weeks now in the aftermath of the settlement news pertaining to President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against parent company Paramount Global over the deceptively edited “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which aired just a month before the 2024 presidential election
As Harris was the Democrat presidential nominee, Trump alleged election interference. Instead of a contentious and protracted battle playing out in the courts amid a highly publicized merger with Skydance Media, Paramount decided to tap out with a $16 million settlement to cover legal fees and which would also be put towards the future Trump presidential library.
They also agreed to release future “60 Minutes” transcripts from interviews they do with presidential candidates. Trump wrote in a late July Truth Social post that “we also anticipate receiving $20 Million Dollars more from the new Owners, in Advertising, PSAs, or similar Programming,” but that has not been confirmed nor denied by Paramount.
Some political observers noted at the time, however, that Resistance Media outlets likely are not going to settle with their number one nemesis unless there is some merit to the lawsuit, which they worry could cause long-term damage to the brand.
As it turns out, if one reads between the lines, it sounds like that’s exactly how this played out behind the scenes ahead of the revelation of the settlement, according to a New York Times interview with former CBS Corporation vice chair Shari Redstone, who they say “personally withdrew” from settlement discussions in January but who “remained the public face of Paramount and CBS as nonexecutive chair”: