Paramount infighting stalls Shari Redstone's push to settle $20B Trump suit: ‘Decision constipation'
Shari Redstone-controlled Paramount is poised to settle a closely watched legal battle with President Trump over alleged deceptive editing of a controversial '60 Minutes' interview with Kamala Harris – but warring factions within the company have delayed the move, On The Money has learned.
The media giant is said to be willing to spend up to $50 million to end the $20 billion lawsuit brought by Trump, thus lifting a legal black cloud that is that is hampering Redstone's plans to sell Paramount, and its CBS News subsidiary at the center of the lawsuit, to independent studio Skydance in a deal valued at $8 billion, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.
But the infighting inside Paramount has paralyzed Redstone & Co. from pulling the trigger, leaving management and board members in limbo, the sources said.
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4 Infighting inside Paramount has paralyzed Shari Redstone from pulling the trigger on a settlement, sources said.
REUTERS
'There seems to be a bit of decision constipation on their part,' said a lawyer with knowledge of the matter. '(Redstone) has been poised to settle this for months but is getting conflicting advice.'
Another lawyer close to the situation said a 'decision could be made tonight or tomorrow.'
The board literally has an emergency meeting every week on when to settle,' the source said.
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Press reps for Redstone and Paramount declined comment, but didn't deny the substance of this report.
Redstone and her board are said to be facing some significant internal pressure from members of her legal team and others not to cave to Trump's demands.
They say the Trump litigation is frivolous, and '60 Minutes' has denied any improper editing of the Harris segment. This faction argues that a settlement would also be seen as an affront to press freedom, that Redstone would be acquiescing to alleged extortion to the president and his power over the administrative state.
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4 Kamala Harris during her interview with '60 Minutes' ahead of last year's presidential election.
60 Minutes / CBS
Earlier in the week, socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote on X: 'I say to Shari Redstone: Enough is enough. Do not capitulate to Trump's attack on a free press. Do not settle Trump's bogus lawsuit against 60 Minutes.'
Sanders' warning came as CBS News president Wendy McMahon was pushed out amid disagreements over the direction of the network.
But other members of Redstone's legal and management team are urging a quick settlement of the Trump suit, believing that a payment for as much as $50 million will satisfy the president, and be a money saver.
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4 Concluding the Trump litigation is seen as a key move to in getting Redstone's planned sale to Skydance approved.
WILL OLIVER/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
A federal judge in Texas has already refused to dismiss the case, and even an eventual win on First Amendment grounds would cost more than $50 million in legal and court costs, these people argue.
'Sooner or later, you got to pay the man,' said one media attorney with first-hand knowledge of the matter.
It's unclear where George Cheeks, one of three co-CEOs heading Paramount, stands on the issue. He may stay with the newly combined Paramount-Skydance if the deal is completed, people with knowledge of the matter say. A Paramount rep declined to publicly comment on his future.
4 If Paramount settles with Trump, it would join a host of media companies and law firms that have paid him to go away.
Christopher Sadowski
Ending the Trump litigation is seen as a key move to getting Redstone's planned sale to Skydance approved. Trump's regulatory apparatus, namely his Federal Communications Commission, is throttling the merger a conservative group filed a complaint that CBS News violated the 'public interest' statutes that govern local TV public airwaves that demand bias-free news programming. The Tiffany Network has been accused for years by conservative groups of tilting its news coverage in favor of Democratic candidates.
The Trump lawsuit almost mirrors the FCC inquiry prompted by a complaint filed by the Center for American Rights that '60 Minutes' violated agency fairness rules when it allegedly edited Harris' interview during the heat of the 2024 president campaign to make her sound more coherent when answering a policy question. Harris is famous for her long-winded, word salad answers to such questions.
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Redstone, the settlement proponents argue, would hardly be an outlier if she simply paid Trump the money to go away. She would join a host of media companies and law firms that have made payments to Trump to end legal actions by the president, who has vast powers to regulate corporate activities. Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, settled a libel action for $16 million with Trump over erroneous comments made by ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Redstone needs to sell her stake in the media conglomerate to preserve what's left of her inheritance from her father, the late media dealmaker Sumner Redstone.
Paramount's stock has cratered amid vast changes in the media business. If the deal is completed, Redstone and her family will walk away with around $2 billion. Paramount was worth close to $40 billion just a few years ago.
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