Paramount's shameful CBS settlement with Trump deserves congressional scrutiny
The Columbia Broadcasting System, known as CBS, has long been one of America's most admired media brands, from Edward R. Murrow's radio reports during World War II while bombs fell around him in England to the investigative invention of the televised news magazine "60 Minutes."
Now, with American media under constant attack from a presidency eager to tip toward tyranny, there's good reason a recent Broadway revival of a show named after Murrow's famous sign-off line – "Good night, and good luck" – was greeted with such acclaim.
The people in charge at Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, have no inspirational words to offer Americans these days. If they had a sign-off line, it would be more like "Give in, and pay up."
That's just what Paramount did on July 2, Wednesday, agreeing to pay $16 million to settle a meritless lawsuit from President Donald Trump, who had first demanded $10 billion and then upped that to $20 billion while siccing federal regulators on CBS.
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Trump's CBS lawsuit was an affront to the First Amendment
Trump's beef: CBS News twice aired an interview during the 2024 presidential campaign with Kamala Harris, then the vice president and Democratic nominee, that had been edited for two shows, "60 Minutes" and "Face the Nation." His real problem was the constant state of victimhood his seething narcissism forces him to seek.
The lawsuit was derided as a blatant assault on the First Amendment protections for free speech in America. Don't take my word for it on that. Consider what CBS News reported Wednesday while announcing the settlement.
"First Amendment scholars and constitutional experts largely view the lawsuit as a frivolous misapplication of the law," the network reported, while noting that Trump's lawyers had specifically filed the case in a federal court district in Texas with one judge, who was appointed by Trump in 2019.
Trump would have lost this case, either at trial or on appeal. But Paramount has something to lose, too.
The company is seeking the Federal Communications Commission's approval for an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media. Trump, who appointed Brendan Carr to head the FCC after winning a second term, has used social media posts to demand punishment for CBS News for the terrible crime of … journalism that didn't say exactly what he wanted to hear.
So this settlement is not about the journalism or ethics at CBS News. It's a payoff from Paramount Chair Shari Redstone so she and a band of very wealthy executives at the top of their corporation can get even richer.
Paramount made some feeble attempts, in announcing the settlement, to dodge the shame of that cash-driven capitulation, noting that Trump will not receive an apology and that the $16 million will go to his future presidential library, not to him directly.
Pathetic stuff. And certainly not the end of this scandal for Paramount, for two reasons.
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First, Trump is now and always has been a bully willing to use bogus lawsuits to harass his perceived enemies. And second, control of Congress could well tip to the Democratic Party in the 2026 midterm elections, which means Paramount's merger could be the subject of well-deserved legislative oversight.
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On the bullying, Paramount was so driven by the merger that it missed the lesson from Trump's assault on the journalists at ABC News. That network's parent company, Walt Disney Co., tried to mollify Trump with a $15 million settlement in December for a tantrum-based lawsuit he filed in March 2024.
Carr, over at the FCC, launched a federal investigation of Disney and ABC several months after the settlement to see if their efforts at employing a diverse workforce broke the law.
Giving in to a bully guarantees more bullying in the future.
Over in Congress, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, took to social media to accuse Paramount of bribing Trump, vowing to press for federal charges if his party takes control of his chamber after the 2026 elections. Wyden and two Senate colleagues, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in May wrote to Redstone to announce their intentions to investigate "potentially illegal conduct" as talk of a settlement circulated.
Redstone and anyone at Paramount who backed this settlement should be ashamed, though I expect they're more focused on profits from the merger than the lasting damage they did to their reputations and the legacy of a once-proud institution of journalism.
They should pay for that cowardice. Trump, the voracious bully, will want more. Democrats, if they win back Congress, should use their powers of oversight to expose every angle of this embarrassing fiasco.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.
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