Paramount, CBS forced to pay eight-figures, change editorial policy in settlement with President Trump
Trump will receive $16 million upfront. This will cover legal fees, costs of the case, and contributions to his library or charitable causes, to be determined at Trump's discretion. There is an expectation that there will be another allocation in the mid-eight figures set aside for advertisements, public service announcements, or other similar transmissions, in support of conservative causes by the network, Fox News Digital has learned.
Sources close to the situation told Fox News Digital that CBS has agreed to update its editorial standards to install a mandatory new rule. Going forward, the network will promptly release full, unedited transcripts of future presidential candidates' interviews. People involved in the settlement talks have referred to this as the "Trump Rule."
Trump was seeking $20 billion in his lawsuit against CBS over its handling of a "60 Minutes" interview last year with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing the network of election interference leading up to the 2024 contest. CBS is not acknowledging any journalistic wrongdoing with the settlement.
The lawsuit alleged CBS News deceitfully edited an exchange Harris had with "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker, who asked her why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't "listening" to the Biden administration. Harris was widely mocked for the "word salad" answer that aired in a preview clip of the interview on CBS' "Face the Nation."
However, when the same question aired during a primetime special on the network, Harris had a different, more concise response. Critics at the time accused CBS News of deceitfully editing Harris' "word salad" answer to shield the Democratic nominee from further backlash leading up to Election Day.
The raw transcript and footage released earlier this year by the FCC showed that both sets of Harris' comments came from the same response, but CBS News had aired only the first half of her response in the "Face the Nation" preview clip and aired the second half during the primetime special.
CBS News had long denied any wrongdoing and stood by the broadcast and its reporting.
Paramount and Trump's legal team had agreed to mediation designed to help the sides reach a settlement. It was widely believed that Paramount Global controlling shareholder Shari Redstone wanted to settle the suit ahead of a planned multi-billion-dollar merger with Skydance Media in hopes of preventing potential retribution by Trump's FCC, which has the authority to halt the transaction.
Trump confidently declared the case against CBS a "winner" in April.
"They cheated and defrauded the American People at levels never seen before in the Political Arena. Kamala Harris, during Early Voting and, immediately before Election Day, was asked a question, and gave an answer, that was so bad and incompetent that it would have cost her many of the Votes that she ended up getting," Trump posted on Truth Social ahead of mediation, going on to accuse the newsmagazine of perpetrating a fraud on the American people.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and eight Democratic colleagues sent a letter to Redstone in May asking her not to settle the lawsuit against CBS News, which they called an "attack on the First Amendment." They called the potential settlement a "grave mistake" and "a blatant attempt to intimidate the media and those who speak out against him, President Trump."
The letter also stated "presidents do not get to punish or censor the media for criticizing them" in the United States.
Earlier this year, FCC Chair Brendan Carr ordered CBS News to hand over the unedited transcript as part of its probe into whether the network violated the FCC's "news distortion" policy after a complaint was filed. CBS had refused to release the unedited transcript until the FCC got involved.
Trump's attorneys amended their lawsuit to include multiple excerpts from the unedited transcript in hopes of bolstering their case that CBS News withheld unflattering exchanges in order to help the Democratic nominee.
The saga emerged as a distraction inside CBS News and longtime "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens walked away from the job in April because he wasn't able to make the "independent decisions" needed for the program to thrive. Owens, who had insisted CBS did nothing wrong with the Harris edit, was vehemently against offering any sort of apology to the president.
CBS News President and CEO Wendy McMahon, who is believed to have been against settling with Trump, announced on May 19 that she was stepping down in another stunning move for the embattled company.
"It's become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It's time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership," McMahon told staffers in a memo that was obtained by Fox News Digital.
ABC also settled a defamation lawsuit in December with then-President-elect Trump for $15 million, after anchor George Stephanopoulos repeatedly and incorrectly asserted Trump had been found "liable for rape" in a civil trial last year.
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