Shari Redstone, the former controlling shareholder for CBS’ parent company Paramount Global, said Paramount agreed to settle with President Donald Trump because of worries about what his legal team may find in discovery, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Paramount agreed in July to pay $16 million to Trump to settle his lawsuit pertaining to the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Redstone told the NYT that CBS employees informed her that former President Joe Biden appeared exhausted and needed to be nudged to answer questions during “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley’s October 2023 interview with him.
Scott Pelley asks President Joe Biden: “Can you foresee U.S. troops in combat in this new Middle East war?” https://t.co/h3sQKPHEtP pic.twitter.com/7khcV1dnCi
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 15, 2023
She and her son were concerned that CBS could face allegations of editing in order to hide Biden’s issues, according to the NYT.
“This case was never as black-and-white as people assumed,” Redstone told the NYT.
One individual who saw the interview in person, along with another who recently evaluated the raw footage asserted the Redstones’ worries were excessive and that Biden did not need to be nudged, according to the NYT. Pelley had described Biden as appearing “tired” on air.
Paramount said its payment, minus the legal fees, would be paid to Trump’s future presidential library and consented to publish the written transcripts of future “60 Minutes” interviews with presidential candidates, the NYT reported at the time. The settlement did not feature an apology.
Trump had filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS News in October 2024 after the network seemed to manipulate Harris’ interview with “60 Minutes” just weeks prior to the November 2024 presidential election. The lawsuit, which surged to $20 billion in February, alleged that CBS News participated in “deliberate deception” by removing portions of Harris’ response on a question about Israel in order to boost her campaign.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published the full, unedited version of the interview in February after FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr opened an investigation in October into the editing. The full cut revealed a completely different answer from Harris than the one broadcast by the network.
“60 Minutes” journalist Bill Whitaker asked Harris whether the U.S. had sway over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the version of her answer that aired on “60 Minutes,” Harris said, “We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
However, in a separate clip, broadcast the day before on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” she also said, “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”
Trump’s lawsuit alleged the failure to include that segment of her answer crossed the line “from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news.”
Some critics suggested the decision to settle was driven by Paramount pursuing an $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Redstone told the NYT that she did not think about how the case could influence the merger.
ABC News also paid $15 million to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the network in December after “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos falsely claimed in March 2024 that Trump was found liable of rape.
Moreover, Trump filed a lawsuit in July against Rupert Murdoch, Dow Jones & Company Inc., News Corporation and the two Wall Street Journal reporters who authored a piece alleging that Trump sent deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein a suggestive letter for his 50th birthday in 2003.
CBS and Paramount did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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