Trump’s Attorneys Say He Suffered from ‘Confusion and Mental Anguish’ After ‘Deceptively’ Edited ‘60 Minutes’ Harris Interview as They Up Pressure on Paramount

As President Trump’s team is in negotiations to settle his $20 billion lawsuit against CBS for its editing of Vice President Harris’s interview with “60 Minutes,” he is keeping the pressure on the Tiffany Network, filing new arguments in court and threatening more lawsuits. Mr. Trump is suing CBS for its editing of Ms. Harris’s October 2024 interview with “60 Minutes.” The editing removed a “word salad” from the beginning of Ms. Harris’s answer to a question about Israel, making her sound more coherent at a critical time in the election season when she was being criticized for avoiding serious interviews and being unable to answer complex questions.In a filing on Wednesday seeking to prevent the lawsuit from being dismissed, the president’s lawyers said the “deceptively edited” interview caused “widespread confusion and mental anguish” for their client and the public. The president’s lawyers said, “Defendants’ conduct, including news distortion, constituted commercial speech which cannot by any reasonable interpretation be found to have constituted editorial judgment, and that speech damaged Plaintiffs.”CBS News has been denounced by President Trump for its editing of the ’60 Minutes’ Kamala Harris interview. Via CBS NewsThe filing comes as Mr. Trump rejected a settlement offer of $15 million from CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, and is seeking more than $25 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. Executives at CBS News and Paramount likely hoped that the recent end of the latest season of “60 Minutes” would mean a temporary end to weekly stories criticizing Mr. Trump — and angering him — as they try to resolve his lawsuit. But staffers at the venerable news magazine are considering an incredible act of defiance: inserting a new, anti-Trump segment into a show that was supposed to be all reruns, Puck’s Dylan Byers reports. Paramount executives and its non-executive chairwoman, Shari Redstone, reportedly believe that resolving Mr. Trump’s lawsuit will pave the way for the Federal Communications Commission to approve the crucial Paramount-Skydance Media merger, which has been on hold for months as the FCC pursues a formal “news distortion” probe into CBS, also over the Harris interview. Ms. Redstone reportedly asked if “60 Minutes” — which had been taunting its management and Mr. Trump with weekly negative stories about the Trump administration — could hold off on such stories until the Skydance deal is approved. CBS’s leader, George Cheeks, also reportedly considered pre-empting the season finale of “60 Minutes” when it was slated to run an anti-Trump story about cutbacks at the IRS. But “60 Minutes” pulled the planned segment at the last minute.Now, despite being in reruns all summer, “60 Minutes” producers are reportedly finishing the IRS story, which they may air instead of a rerun. A left-wing journalist, Oliver Darcy, reported in his “Status” newsletter that the “hard-hitting” story was pulled “in the eleventh hour” because the Trump administration said it planned to rehire many of the fired workers and it “needed to be reworked.” The program told viewers that the show had been updated because of “late-breaking developments,” and instead, the finale featured a story about Cajun music. Terminated: Wendy McMahon, CEO of CBS News, is exiting Paramount. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, FileYet, it appears that the story may be seen by the public after all. Mr. Byers writes that there are “tentative plans to swap it back into a future rerun,” and that it has “gone through at least five internal screenings.” The president of CBS News, Tom Cibrowski, has reportedly sat in on three of the screenings. But shortly after Mr. Byers’s update was emailed to Puck subscribers, his rival, Mr. Darcy, sent out his “Status” newsletter reporting that there were “no plans to air the piece this weekend.” However, he said the show “has not scrapped the segment and officially maintains it will continue reporting on the issue. … When it might air, however, remains unclear.” He added that the story was regarded as weak, editorially, by “60 Minutes” brass.The different accounts emanating from CBS News suggest an internal debate about whether to push back at Paramount and make it harder to settle.The move to edit an older episode of “60 Minutes” to add a negative story about the Trump administration would be a highly unusual provocation and an extremely rare incidence of a broadcast network airing dirty laundry. While a “60 Minutes” correspondent, Scott Pelley, told viewers after the resignation of the show’s executive producer, Bill Owens, that none of the program’s stories have been blocked by Paramount, multiple reports have indicated that the top brass has sent signals to tone down the anti-Trump and anti-Israel coverage. Ousted: Executive Producer Bill Owens of ’60 Minutes’ Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesMr. Owens, and the CEO of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, have both been forced out in the last five weeks. The decision-making process is not clear. “60 Minutes” has traditionally operated independently of the rest of CBS News, and Mr. Cibrowski’s experience is in morning news programming, which “60 Minutes” producers are said not to respect. Mr. Trump’s legal team has already suggested it might sue CBS again because of stories from “60 Minutes.” The president’s legal team suggested this week that it might sue over a “60 Minutes” story about the administration’s order targeting liberal law firms. The story featured an attorney, Marc Elias, who was involved in getting the research firm Fusion GPS to compile what has become known as the “Steele Dossier” in the 2016 election, which accused Mr. Trump’s campaign of colluding with Russian operatives to boost his electoral prospects.The “60 Minutes” story left that piece of information out. In the segment, Mr. Elias accused the president of “trying to intimidate [law firms] the way in which a mob boss intimidates people in the neighborhood that he is seeking to either exact protection money from or engage in other nefarious conduct.”An attorney for Mr. Trump, Ed Paltzik, said the story was “defamatory.”Kamala Harris sits down with Bill Whitaker for her ’60 Minutes’ interview. CBS NewsCBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. The reports indicating that the IRS story could be inserted into an older episode will likely frustrate Ms. Redstone and the other executives at Paramount, who are reportedly getting nervous about the idea of settling Mr. Trump’s lawsuit and the potential civil and legal repercussions of such a move. Ms. Redstone, who would likely be on the hook for a $400 million kill fee if the Skydance deal is not approved, has been an advocate for a settlement. However, she has reportedly recused herself from negotiations on the matter. Some Paramount executives are concerned that settling Mr. Trump’s lawsuit could be seen as a bribe and expose them to legal perils, the Journal reported. One way to help avoid the appearance of a bribe is for the network to issue an apology for the editing of the Harris interview — something the president is also reportedly pushing for. Mr. Owens and Ms. McMahon, were believed to be firmly against the idea of settling the lawsuit and called an apology a “red line” they would not cross, according to Mr. Darcy. With their resignations, it appeared that a settlement with an apology could be coming in the near future. The CBS News chief, Wendy McMahon, has previously received a strong vote of support from her boss, the CBS chief, George Cheeks. Getty ImagesAnother way Paramount executives have sought to avoid the appearance of a bribe is to keep the settlement around the same amount other companies have paid to resolve Mr. Trump’s lawsuits, the Journal reports. Disney agreed to pay Mr. Trump $16 million after an ABC News host, George Stephanopoulos, falsely and repeatedly said the president had been found liable for rape. Meanwhile, Meta paid the president $25 million to settle a lawsuit against the social media platform for suspending his accounts after the January 6 riot.

Trump’s Attorneys Say He Suffered from ‘Confusion and Mental Anguish’ After ‘Deceptively’ Edited ‘60 Minutes’ Harris Interview as They Up Pressure on Paramount

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