President Trump’s approved crew filed an objection to Paramount Worldwide‘s switch to dismiss his $20 billion lawsuit in direction of CBS over a “60 Minutes” section, arguing that the TV newsmagazine’s alleged deceptive modifying of an interview with Kamala Harris shouldn’t be protected by the First Modification.
Trump filed the lawsuit in direction of CBS merely days sooner than the 2024 presidential election, alleging the “60 Minutes” interview with Harris violated a Texas shopper security regulation by misleading voters and induced Trump non-public financial damage. His swimsuit initially requested for $10 billion in damages. In February, the president amended the grievance to hunt not lower than $20 billion.
In a March 2025 motion to dismiss Trump’s swimsuit, Paramount generally known as the approved movement “an affront to the First Modification” that’s “with out basis in regulation or actuality.” CBS Data has maintained that the “60 Minutes” broadcast and promotion of the Harris interview was “not doctored or deceitful.”
Within the meantime, attorneys for Paramount and Trump have engaged in settlement talks. Paramount equipped $15 million to settle the swimsuit — an amount rejected by Trump, based mostly on a report by the Wall Highway Journal. Trump’s attorneys want larger than that, they often want “60 Minutes” to problem an apology to the president, per the Journal article. In addition to, Trump’s attorneys President’s crew “threatened one different lawsuit” in direction of CBS amid the settlement talks, based mostly on the WSJ report.
On Wednesday (Might 28), attorneys for Trump and his co-plaintiff, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), filed their opposition to Paramount’s motion to dismiss.
A key stage of Trump’s approved argument is that the edited variations of the “60 Minutes” Harris interview characterize industrial speech, and that — as alleged throughout the president’s lawsuit — CBS competes for selling with Trump’s media corporations, along with Truth Social’s mum or dad agency Trump Media & Know-how Group (which is majority-owned by the president).
With the edited Harris interview, CBS’s “conduct, along with info distortion, constituted industrial speech which may’t by any low-cost interpretation be found to have constituted editorial judgment, and that speech damaged Plaintiffs,” Trump’s submitting said. “The reality that such industrial speech was issued by a info group doesn’t insulate Defendants from obligation beneath the First Modification.”
“[T]he First Modification isn’t any defend to info distortion,” based mostly on the Trump crew’s submitting.
According to the submitting, the “60 Minutes” modifying of the Harris interview “led to widespread confusion and psychological anguish of consumers, along with Plaintiffs, regarding a household title of the legacy media apparently deceptively distorting its broadcasts, after which resisting makes an try and clear most of the people doc.”
A reproduction of the Trump crew’s motion, filed throughout the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of Texas, is at this hyperlink.
The approved battle comes as Paramount is trying to find authorities approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Three left-wing U.S. senators have warned Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, that such a settlement value by Paramount to the president will be tantamount to an illegal bribe, although approved specialists say it’s impossible the media agency could face such a value.
The Paramount-Skydance deal is in the intervening time pending FCC approval. Trump-appointed FCC chairman Brendan Carr has maintained the corporate’s approval of Paramount-Skydance shouldn’t be linked to the president’s “60 Minutes” lawsuit. Ultimate November, Carr said in a Fox Data interview {{that a}} conservative group’s “info distortion” grievance in direction of CBS over the “60 Minutes” Harris interview was “extra more likely to come up throughout the context of the FCC analysis of [the Paramount-Skydance] transaction.” Paramount Worldwide has said Trump’s lawsuit “is completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval course of.”
In February, Redstone requested Paramount’s board to resolve the Trump lawsuit, along with by exploring the potential for mediation, Choice has reported. Redstone recused herself from the board’s discussions a number of settlement with Trump.
In response to an FCC request in its examination of the “new distortion” grievance, CBS Data made public an unedited transcript of the “60 Minutes” interview with Harris that aired Oct. 6, 2024 (on the market at this hyperlink) and said the provides confirmed that “in keeping with 60 Minutes’ repeated assurances to most of the people,” the printed “was not doctored or deceitful.”
The Trump lawsuit’s claims coronary heart on an change whereby “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker requested Harris regarding the Biden administration’s relations with Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu, whom Whitaker said “shouldn’t be listening” to the White House. CBS Data broadcast an prolonged portion of Harris’s response on Oct. 6 on “Face the Nation,” whereas the edited “60 Minutes” section broadcast the next day included a shorter excerpt from the similar reply. “Each excerpt shows the substance of the vice chairman’s reply,” CBS Data said in a press launch.
In a separate case, Trump last 12 months sued ABC Data and George Stephanopoulos after the anchor inaccurately acknowledged on-air that Trump had been found accountable for rape. (A New York jury found Trump accountable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.) In December 2024, Disney and ABC Data agreed to pay $15 million to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit plus $1 million in approved expenses.
