Paramount, which owns CBS, is reportedly trying to settle a laughable lawsuit that Donald Trump filed last October based on a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the 2024 presidential election. The New York Times reports that the company started settlement negotiations because it is keen to avoid regulatory obstacles to its planned merger with Skydance Media.
Paramount's openness to a settlement represents quite a turnaround from the position that CBS took after Trump filed his lawsuit. "The lawsuit Trump has brought today against CBS is completely without merit," the network said then, "and we will vigorously defend against it." The striking change illustrates the pressure that a president can exert on news outlets that annoy him—a reality that is especially troubling when the White House is occupied by someone determined to "straighten out the press." Although that mission is blatantly inconsistent with the First Amendment, Trump can pursue it indirectly by deploying executive power in service of his personal vendettas.
After Trump sued CBS, the Times notes, "many legal experts dismissed the litigation as a far-fetched attempt to punish an out-of-favor news outlet." That is arguably a charitable description of Trump's lawsuit, which avers that CBS violated a Texas consumer fraud statute by editing the interview with Harris in a way that made her seem slightly more cogent. His invocation of that law is patently frivolous. So is Trump's risible claim that the editing of the interview cost him "at least" $10 billion in damages.
