Paramount Agrees To Pay $16 Million, but Refuses To Apologize, To Settle Trump Lawsuit Over Harris Interview

The parent company of CBS News, Paramount Global, and President Trump’s legal team have reached a multimillion-dollar agreement to settle his lawsuit over the editing of Vice President Harris’s “60 Minutes” interview, without what would have been a controversial apology.After months of negotiations between Paramount’s lawyers and attorneys for Mr. Trump, the two sides announced late Tuesday night that they had finally reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit.Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential library, and the company stated that “60 Minutes” will release transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates, “subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns.” It added that none of the funds would be going directly to Mr. Trump or Congressman Ronny Jackson, who was a co-plaintiff in the suit. Notably, Paramount said the settlement did not include a “statement of apology or regret.” Mr. Trump’s legal team reportedly had conditioned a settlement on an apology. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount was not “prepared” to offer one.The settlement is seen as a major concession to Mr. Trump, as several journalists and liberal scholars widely derided the lawsuit as “meritless.” A left-wing media journalist, Oliver Darcy, reported earlier this week that the seven correspondents of “60 Minutes” sent a note to their bosses at Paramount urging them to fight the lawsuit and warning that it would be a “stain” on the company if it settled. Mr. Trump’s lawsuit was filed against CBS in October after “60 Minutes” removed what critics called a “word salad” from the beginning of Ms. Harris’s answer to a question about Israel. CBS has defended the editing and said it was done for time and concision purposes. The network repeatedly tried and failed to get the lawsuit dismissed. The president alleged the editing caused him “mental anguish” and could have cost him the 2024 election. While CBS’s lawyers attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed, multiple reports indicated that Paramount executives believed a settlement was crucial to securing the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of its merger with Skydance Media.The Trump-appointed chairman of the commission, Brendan Carr, has said the president’s lawsuit is unrelated to his agency’s review of the Skydance deal. However, the agency is conducting what it describes as a “news distortion investigation” of the Harris interview, and the Skydance deal has been held up. The Skydance deal has widely been seen as crucial to keeping one of Hollywood’s oldest studios, Paramount, intact, allowing it to avoid massive layoffs. It would also give the family that owns the studio, the Redstones, enough money to pay off its debts with about $1.8 billion left over.Failure to close the deal by the final October 7 deadline could leave the Redstones on the hook for a $400 million kill fee and struggling to find ways to pay their debts. The non-executive chairwoman of Paramount, Shari Redstone, has been seen as instrumental in pushing for a settlement, though her spokesperson said she recused herself from such conversations. Although it was widely believed that Mr. Trump wanted an apology, it appears he ultimately dropped that demand. It remains to be seen how long the FCC will take to complete its review of the deal.However, Mr. Trump has offered his support for the merger. The chief executive of Skydance, David Ellison, is the son of the co-founder of Oracle and the fourth-richest American, Larry Ellison, who is a strong Trump supporter. At an event at the White House last month, Mr. Trump said he believed the younger Mr. Ellison would do a “great job” overseeing Paramount and CBS. The president and Mr. Ellison were seated near each other at a UFC event in New Jersey earlier this year. And at the beginning of June, the two were seen amid a “heated exchange” at another UFC event, Variety reported. The conversation reportedly ended with a “firm handshake.”Although Mr. Trump’s lawyers have insisted they have a strong case that would win in court, a veteran media reporter, Matthew Belloni, has long predicted that the two parties would settle and that the Skydance deal would be approved because the Ellisons and Ms. Redstone are his “friends.”While the president’s litigation against CBS is likely over, that does not mean Paramount is entirely out of the woods. Despite Mr. Carr’s insistence that the lawsuit was not related to his agency’s review of the Skydance deal, multiple journalists and lawmakers have raised concerns that a settlement might be a bribe to grease the wheels of the review process, which they said runs the risk of violating federal anti-bribery laws.Senators Sanders, Warren, and Wyden sent a letter to Ms. Redstone warning as much. State senators in California also asked that the former head of CBS News and Stations, Wendy McMahon, and the former executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, testify as part of their investigation into the settlement to determine whether it violated the state’s unfair competition law. As pressure mounted on the company not to settle, Paramount executives reportedly grew increasingly concerned that a settlement could expose them to legal perils, such as civil or criminal investigations. One route that has been widely speculated about as a way to avoid bribery charges would have been for CBS to issue an apology. The network’s Dan Rather issued an on-air apology in 2004 after airing a faulty story that attacked President Bush’s National Guard service. The lack of an apology — which would amount to an acknowledgment of wrongdoing that would justify the settlement — could lead to legal problems.The Freedom of the Press Foundation, a shareholder of Paramount, said in June that it planned to sue the studio if it settled with Mr. Trump. Meanwhile, a legal reporter at Puck, Eriq Gardner, suggested that an “ambitious” left-wing state attorney general might pursue civil forfeiture against the Redstones to seize the funds they received from the Skydance deal under the pretense that they were the result of a “corrupt act.”Another potential option discussed for Paramount to avoid the appearance of a bribe was to keep the settlement close to what other companies had paid Mr. Trump to settle lawsuits. In December, Disney agreed to pay $16 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought against ABC News after host George Stephanopoulos falsely and repeatedly said the president had been “found liable for rape.” In its settlement with Mr. Trump, Disney apologized.The Paramount settlement is likely to roil the news division at CBS, and there has been speculation that some of the most well-known talent may leave the network.

Paramount Agrees To Pay $16 Million, but Refuses To Apologize, To Settle Trump Lawsuit Over Harris Interview

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