Executives at Paramount have already offered President Donald Trump a $15 million settlement to make his lawsuit against CBS News go away — but he's not satisfied with that offer, reported the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
"Trump’s team wants more than $25 million and is also seeking an apology from CBS News, one of the people said," according to the report. "Trump’s team has threatened another lawsuit against CBS related to alleged bias of its news coverage, according to the people. Wednesday is the deadline for Trump to respond to Paramount’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit."
The basis for Trump's lawsuit is an allegation by the president that the CBS program "60 Minutes" misleadingly edited and spliced their interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris to portray her in a better light during the 2024 presidential campaign.
CBS and "60 Minutes" deny doing any such thing, and legal experts broadly agree that even if they had, it would fall under protected First Amendment press freedom.
Nonetheless, Paramount executives have pushed hard to settle the suit out of fear that the Trump administration could interfere with their planned merger with Skydance in retaliation (although Shari Redstone, a major Paramount shareholder who has reportedly advocated the settlement hard, has recused herself from these negotiations). This tracks with several other media and tech companies that settled similarly frivolous lawsuits with the president.
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A wrinkle in the negotiations has been that Paramount executives reportedly fear that if the public perception is that they settled to avoid unrelated regulatory action, they could be sued by shareholders or even criminally charged with bribery. "By settling within the range of what other companies have paid to end litigation with Trump, some Paramount executives hope to minimize such liability," sources told the Journal — which is why they offered a settlement in the same range as one made by ABC News, who paid out $15 million to the Trump presidential library and $1 million in opposing legal fees.
That suit centered on the repeated on-air claim by ABC's George Stephanopoulos that Trump was found civilly liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. A jury found him liable for sexual abuse, but stopped short of declaring it rape under New York state law — though the judge overseeing the case clarified this was an insignificant distinction.
As Paramount executives have inched closer to settling, CBS has seen a wave of resignations of staff and executives, including network CEO Wendy McMahon, who made clear she could not in good conscience issue an apology to Trump if that was part of the terms of any settlement.