George Clooney has said that the United States would be in a better place if ABC and CBS had told Donald Trump to “go f*** yourself” rather than settle his defamation lawsuits.
Railing against Bari Weiss, the “anti-woke” founder of The Free Press recently installed by Paramount chief David Ellison to lead CBS News, the Oscar-winning actor also warned that she is “dismantling” the Tiffany Network.
“I’m worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press,” Clooney told Variety in a wide-ranging interview.
The Independent has contacted CBS News and ABC News for comment.
While promoting his new movie Jay Kelly and floating the idea of reviving the Ocean’s heist film franchise, Clooney – who recently became a French citizen after moving his family to France in 2021 – related his Broadway turn in Good Night, and Good Luck to the state of American media today.
In the play, adapted from the 2005 film of the same name which the actor directed and starred in, Clooney portrays legendary CBS News anchor Edward R. Murrow when he stood up to Joseph McCarthy. At the time the film was released, Clooney – whose father was a longtime TV news anchorman – said he “intended to draw parallels between Murrow and how the media was covering the lead-up to the Iraq War.”
Twenty years later, the story resonates differently now that Trump is back in office and hitting news organizations with billion-dollar lawsuits while threatening to pull their broadcast licenses.
“When Clooney played Murrow last spring, CBS News was settling a frivolous lawsuit with Trump so that he’d approve the sale of its parent company, Paramount, to Skydance,” Variety’s Brent Lang noted. “That enraged Clooney, as did ABC News’ similar settlement with the president over a defamation claim.”
Weeks before the president’s second inauguration, Disney – the parent company of ABC News – paid Trump $15 million to settle his complaint after anchor George Stephanopoulos incorrectly claimed on-air that Trump had been found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil case. (Trump was actually found liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.)
While legal analysts told The Independent at the time that the “case against ABC would have been a close call” if it went to trial, First Amendment experts warned that the settlement would have a “chilling effect” on the media going forward. “Many in free press circles are holding their breath,” one stated. “There is concern that we are embarking on some scary times.”
Months later, amid a politically-fraught $8.4 billion merger with Ellison’s Skydance Media, Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle his defamation lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, despite CBS News lawyers calling the complaint “meritless.”
Though Paramount’s leadership insisted that the settlement was unrelated to the Skydance deal, the merger was approved weeks later by the Trump administration. House Democrats have since launched an investigation into whether the settlement constituted a “bribe” to the president in order to secure the deal.
“If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go f*** yourself,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney told Variety. “That’s simply the truth.”
Clooney went on to express concerns over the “MAGA-friendly” direction of CBS News under Ellison and Weiss, who was hired in October. She has recently come under fire for spiking a 60 Minutes story at the last minute about the Trump administration sending Venezuelan migrants to the notorious El Salvador CECOT prison.
“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” he said. “I’m worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”
He also grew more “animated” over his belief that some journalists and news outlets have abandoned their “mission to hold the powerful to account,” prompting him to reference a quote of Murrow’s from the film and play.
“‘Let’s not confuse dissent with disloyalty,’” Clooney said. “I mean, what a beautiful, important statement about who we are at our best. But all too often we fall short.”
While extremely worried about the state of the country and the free press under a Trump White House, calling it a “very trying time,” Clooney – one of Hollywood’s most outspoken liberals – also revealed that there was once a time when he was pals with the celebrity game show host turned president.
“I knew him very well,” the Michael Clayton star proclaimed. “He used to call me a lot, and he tried to help me get into a hospital once to see a back surgeon. I’d see him out at clubs and at restaurants. He’s a big goofball. Well, he was. That all changed.”
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