Paramount settles with Trump for $16 million over ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit CBS News said was ‘meritless’

Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, has agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle the president’s lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that the network’s lawyers had deemed “meritless” in recent court filings.

The payment to the sitting president of the United States comes as Paramount is looking to close an $8 billion merger with Skydance Media that will require final approval from the Trump administration. Shari Redstone, the company’s top shareholder, had made it clear that she favored settling the lawsuit with Trump in order to clear the way for the Skydance deal to go through.

The looming payoff to the president, which seemed all but inevitable in recent days after the two sides told a Texas court they were involved in “good faith, advanced, settlement negotiations,” has sparked anger among the CBS staff and led to low morale as well as the resignations of two of the network’s news leaders. The resolution also came mere hours before the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday.

Paramount noted that the terms of the settlement, which were proposed by the mediator in the case, include the company paying the plaintiffs’ legal fees and costs. Trump was joined in the lawsuit by Rep. Ronnie Jackson (R-TX), a longtime ally and his one-time presidential physician.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

No money will be paid directly to the president or Jackson, as the remaining funds, minus legal costs, will be allocated to Trump’s future presidential library. This is a similar arrangement that Disney reached last year in Trump’s defamation lawsuit over comments made by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

The settlement also includes a release of all claims made by the president regarding CBS reporting through Tuesday, which includes both the disputed 60 Minutes interview and other defamation actions that Trump has threatened in recent months.

Paramount has also agreed to release the transcripts of 60 Minutes interviews with presidential candidates in the future after the segments have aired, subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns.

Notably, the settlement does not include any apology or statement of regret, which was reportedly a major sticking point with Trump during the monthslong mediation process. Reportedly, the president – who initially sued for $20 billion – was seeking at least $25 million and an on-air apology.

While the settlement comes amid the pending merger that would eventually place Paramount under the control of David Ellison, the son of Trump-backing mogul Larry Ellison, the company has insisted that the lawsuit is “completely separate from, and unrelated to” the transaction and the FCC approval process. Brendan Carr, the president’s handpicked FCC chairman, has also stated that the two issues are not linked.

“No one is a fan of Shari right now,” one network staffer told The Independent on Tuesday evening. “People are still angry and frustrated and morale is very low.”

While the Paramount board and Redstone – who recused herself from the settlement negotiations and is currently fighting thyroid cancer – had long indicated that they preferred to settle to make the matter go away ahead of the major media merger, the network’s lawyers continued to fight the case in court.

After filing a motion to dismiss the case earlier this year, CBS News’ attorneys filed a memo in support of the motion just last week. “The chilling effect of Plaintiffs’ meritless assault on the First Amendment compels dismissal now,” the filing noted.

Well before the resolution of the lawsuit was complete on Tuesday night, the specter of settling a lawsuit that most legal experts deemed “frivolous”, and the network itself said was clearly “without merit”, to a president who has labeled the free press “the enemy of the people” had led to rising tensions within CBS News.

Adding to the turmoil over the handling of Trump’s legal attacks was the additional scrutiny Redstone and other executives applied to 60 Minutes over the past few months, especially over stories they felt were overly critical of the president. Though the network didn’t kill any stories amid the increased pressure, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned in April because he felt he was unable “to make independent decisions” due to corporate interference.

CBS News chief Wendy McMahon would follow a month later, noting that she did “not agree on the path forward” with the company. Both of the newsroom leaders had explicitly noted to the upper brass that they would not apologize for the interview as part of any arrangement with Trump.

Amid the resignations and the continued discussions of a settlement over the editing down of one of Harris’ answers to a question, the frustration at CBS News eventually boiled to the surface. “It would be very damaging to CBS, to Paramount, to the reputation of those companies,” 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley told CNN last month.

Another 60 Minutes correspondent, CBS News legend Lesley Stahl, said in a New Yorker interview that she’s “angry” at Redstone for looking to settle with Trump, adding that she’s “pessimistic” and “we’re in very dark times.”

On top of that, all seven correspondents of the vaunted newsmagazine sent a letter in May to Paramount co-chief executives George Cheeks, Brian Robbins, and Chris McCarthy warning of the reputational damage a settlement would cause the network and the show.

“They pointedly expressed concern that Paramount is failing to put up a fierce and unrelenting fight in the face of Trump’s lawsuit over the program’s Kamala Harris interview, which has been widely denounced by the legal community as baseless, according to the people familiar with the matter,” Status News reported this week. “They said Trump’s allegations against the storied program are false and ripped his lawsuit as baseless. And they warned in no uncertain terms that if Paramount were to settle with Trump, it will stain the reputation of the company and undermine the First Amendment.”

In the end, though, that “letter didn’t move the needle at all,” a network insider told The Independent, adding that it “just shows that they have no oversight.”

With a settlement growing increasingly likely in recent weeks, Democratic lawmakers and journalism organizations have urged Paramount to reconsider, warning that failure to do so could lead to civil litigation, congressional hearings, and criminal probes over potential violations of anti-bribery laws.

“Even if Paramount directors and officers don’t care about the harm to the First Amendment from settling, they need to think hard about whether it’s worth the harm to themselves,” the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which had threatened to file a lawsuit on behalf of shareholder if a settlement was reached, tweeted on Monday. “Is securing Shari Redstone’s windfall worth getting sued or investigated?”

In fact, Paramount board members had recently weighed concerns over the possibility of facing legal action due to allegations of extortion and bribery, specifically because of the perception that settling with the president would secure the Skydance merger. The Freedom of the Press Foundation, meanwhile, has recently enlisted prominent litigators Abby Lowell and Norm Eisen in anticipation of filing a complaint against Paramount in the event of a settlement.