Shari Redstone's Standoff With Trump Is Playing Live on Broadway Stage in ‘Good Night, and Good Luck'
It's powerfully strange that a play starring George Clooney about the perils that government bullying once posed to journalistic inquiry at CBS News is being staged every night just down the street from CBS News in one direction, and a few blocks from corporate parent Paramount Global in the other.
The play coincides with our current reality: CBS News is currently being bullied by our government. The play is at the Winter Garden on 51st Street. Paramount headquarters is on 44th Street; CBS News is on 57th Street. And Trump Tower is on 56th. That's a mighty small fishbowl for the future of democracy and a free press.
The question is, will real life turn out differently from the play?
'Good Night, and Good Luck,' about legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow challenging the Red-baiting terror of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, parallels the dilemma facing Paramount's controlling shareholder Shari Redstone. She is under pressure from the journalists at CBS News because she is seeking to settle a specious, $20 billion lawsuit from President Trump over CBS News's '60 Minutes'' editing of an interview with Kamala Harris last year.
The lawsuit is a bully tactic to get Redstone to cave to Trump as she waits for FCC approval of her pending deal to sell Paramount to Skydance Media for $8 billion.
McCarthy used bully tactics too, like smearing Murrow's reputation by claiming falsely that he had Communist ties, and by pressuring CBS President Bill Paley to get Murrow to back down.
Like Redstone, Paley wavered.
Reprising the project he directed as a film in 2005, Clooney is telling a fable for our times and issuing a warning. Murrow was one of a few household names in America at that time who had the credibility to take on McCarthy as the power-hungry Senator demanded that friends and family members rat each other out in public hearings on Communism and our military. He ruined the careers and reputations of those who came in his cross-hairs.
McCarthy was not president, but he was arguably as powerful in his day as the power-hungry Trump is in ours. And there is another tie: political operative Roy Cohn, who trained and counseled Trump in the art of lying and manipulation — a relationship detailed in the recent movie 'The Apprentice' — was McCarthy's chief counsel during those 1954 hearings, and assisted investigations of suspected communists.
Bill Paley, the just-as-legendary head of CBS who built the company into a media powerhouse from 1928 to 1946 and beyond, moved 'See It Now' to a time slot far out of prime time, where fewer were likely to see it. He didn't fire Murrow. And unlike the recent resignations at '60 Minutes' and CBS News, Murrow didn't give in.
The play is a reminder that the boundaries of our democracy have been tested before. (My colleague Brian Lowry has written about yet another challenge CBS faced over airing an expose of the tobacco industry on '60 Minutes' while a merger with Westinghouse hung in the balance.) Freedoms were strained mightily – lives were ruined, in the play one staffer takes his own life – but overall our democracy held. CBS News lived to fight another day. And McCarthy had his downfall.
But not without principled warriors like Murrow and his producer Fred Friendly who were prepared to pay the price when the risks were high – drawing McCarthy's counterpunch, losing nervous advertisers, alienating viewers. They joked about leaving the country.
Last month Redstone reportedly asked her CEO George Cheeks if '60 Minutes' could avoid reporting on the Trump administration until her Skydance merger was done. Despite the resignations at the news division, it does not appear that '60 Minutes' has done so.
She might do well to remember Murrow's words, spoken solemnly by Clooney to an audience this weekend and night after night during this Broadway run:
'We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men—not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.'
Murrow's reports contributed to a turning point, the infamous moment when the senator was publicly called out during a hearing – 'McCarthy, have you no sense of decency?' – which led to an investigation and vote of censure by his colleagues.
No such exit ramp seems open to us at this time. It is hard to imagine censure or public shame being effective today. Trump simply has no shame, and leads a cowed and paralyzed Republican Party and Congress.
At the Winter Garden the audience cheered and cheered at the drop of the curtain. To them, the stakes were clear and the path once guaranteed in our Constitution necessary. But there is no Murrow-hero coming to save us.
The current deadline for the Paramount-Skydance deal is July 6, though an extension is possible.
I wonder if Shari Redstone has seen 'Good Night, and Good Luck.'
Editor's Note: The play 'Good Night, and Good Luck' will be televised on June 7.
The post Shari Redstone's Standoff With Trump Is Playing Live on Broadway Stage in 'Good Night, and Good Luck' appeared first on TheWrap.
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MARGARET BRENNAN: JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, spoke this week at an economic forum, and he gave this read on Beijing. [SOT] JAMIE DIMON: I just got back from China last week. They're not scared, folks. This notion they're gonna come bow to America. I wouldn't count on that. And when they have a problem, they put 100,000 engineers on it, and they've been preparing for this for years. [END SOT] MARGARET BRENNAN: Have you underestimated the Chinese state's backbone here? SEC. BESSENT: Again, Margaret, I hope it doesn't come to that. And Jamie is a great banker. I know him well, but I would vociferously disagree with that assessment, that the laws of economics and gravity apply to the Chinese economy and the Chinese system, just like everyone else. MARGARET BRENNAN: But when you were last here in March, we were trying to gauge what the impact of the standoff with China and with the tariffs on the rest of the world would do for American consumers here at home. At that time, you told us you were going to appoint an affordability czar and council to figure out five, you said, or eight areas where there will be some pain for working class Americans. Where are you anticipating price increases? SEC. BESSENT: Well, thus far- we wanted to make sure that there aren't price increases, Margaret. And thus far there have been no price increases. Everything has been alarmist, that the inflation numbers are actually dropping. We saw the first drop of inflation in four years. The inflation numbers last week, they were very- the- pro-consumer. We've-- MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but you listen to earnings calls just like we do. You know what Walmart's saying, what Best Buy's saying and what Target are saying of what's coming-- SEC. BESSENT: But Margaret, I also know what Home Depot and Amazon are saying. I know what the South China Morning Post wrote within the past 24 hours that 65%- 65%- the- of the tariffs will likely be eaten by the Chinese producers. MARGARET BRENNAN: So are there five or eight areas that you have identified, as you said back in March, where American consumers will be able to have lower prices, or should be warned of higher prices? SEC. BESSENT: Well, a lot of it's already working its way through the system. So we've seen a substantial decrease in gasoline and energy prices. So that's down 20% year over year. We've seen the food prices go down, these notorious egg prices. Through the good work of President Trump and Secretary Rollins, egg prices have collapsed. So we're seeing more and more. And what we want to do- the- is even that out across the all sections of the economy. So inflation has been very tame. Consumer earnings were up 0.8% last month, which is a gigantic increase for one month. So real earnings minus low inflation is great for the American people, and that's what we're seeing. 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It can't absorb the cost of an imported pair of kids jeans with a 46% tariff on Vietnam, a 37% tariff for Bangladesh, or 32% tariff on sneakers from Indonesia. Other companies are in the same pickle.' So should companies cut back on the amount of goods they have on their shelves or just on their profitability? SEC. BESSENT: That- that's a decision company by- by company, Margaret. And I had a long discussion with Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, and they're going to do what's right for them. MARGARET BRENNAN: But for consumers, the reality is there will either be less inventory or things at higher prices, or both. SEC. BESSENT: Margaret, when we were here in March, you said there was going to be big inflation. There hasn't been any inflation. Actually, the inflation numbers are the best in four years. So why don't we stop trying to say this could happen, and wait and see what does happen. MARGARET BRENNAN: Just trying to gauge for people planning ahead here, one of the things the President said on Friday is that he's going to double the tariffs on steel and aluminum up to 50%, effective June 4. How much will that impact the construction industry? SEC. BESSENT: Well, I think- I was with the president at the U.S. Steel Plant in Pittsburgh on Friday, and I will tell you that the President has the- reignited the steel industry here in America. And back to the earlier statements on national security. There are national security priorities here for having a strong steel industry. MARGARET BRENNAN: But do you have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the construction industry, for example? SEC. BESSENT: Well, I have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the steel industry, and you know, again, we- we'll see there are a lot of elasticities that- you know this is a very complicated ecosystem. So is it going to impact the construction industry, maybe. But it's going to impact the steel industry, the- in a great way. The steel workers, again, were left on the side of the road after the China shock, and now they're back that the- they are Trump supporters. And when I tell you that it was magic in the arena, or it was actually at the steel plant that night, that these hard working Americans know their jobs are secure, there's going to be capital investment, and the number of jobs is going to be grown around the country, whether it's in Pittsburgh, whether it's in Arkansas, whether it's in Alabama. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about this big tax bill that worked through the House, is going to the Senate next. In it is increase or suspension to the debt limit that you need delivered on by mid-July. How close of a brush with default could this be, given how massive some of the Senate changes are expected to be to the other parts of the bill? SEC. BESSENT: Well, first of all, Margaret, I will say the United States of America is never going to default. That is never going to happen. That- we are on the warning track and we will never hit the wall. MARGARET BRENNAN: You have more wiggle room if they don't deliver this by mid-July? I mean, how hard of a date is this? SEC. BESSENT: That- we don't give out the X date because we use that to move the bill forward. MARGARET BRENNAN: Sometimes deadlines help force action, as you know, particularly in this town, sir, that's why I'm asking. The President did say he- he expects pretty significant changes to this bill, though, so that affects the timing of it moving. What would you like Republican lawmakers to keep? What would you like them to alter? SEC. BESSENT: Again, that's going to be the Senate's decision. Leader Thune, who I've worked closely with during this process, has been doing a fantastic job. And Margaret, I'll point out, everyone said that Speaker Johnson would not be able to get this bill out of the house with his slim majority. He got it out Leader Thune has a bigger majority, and this is with President Trump's leadership. So-- MARGARET BRENNAN: --There's no red lines for you in there of just don't touch this you can, you know, tinker with that. SEC. BESSENT: Well, I- I think that they're not necessarily my red lines. The President has the- his campaign promises that he wants to fulfill for working Americans. So no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans for American made automobiles. MARGARET BRENNAN: So those have to stay in. SEC. BESSENT: Those have to stay in. MARGARET BRENNAN: JP Morgan's Dimon also predicted a debt market crisis. 'Cracks in the bond market' was what he said. You are considering easing some regulations, you've said, for the big banks. How do you avoid that bond market crisis he's predicting, spreading and really causing concern, particularly with all of the worries about American debt right now? SEC. BESSENT: So again, I've known Jamie a long time and for his entire career he's made predictions like this. Fortunately, none of them have come true. That's why he's a banker- a great banker. He tries to look around the corner. One of the reasons I'm sitting here talking to you today and not at home watching your show is that I was concerned about the level of debt. So the deficit this year is going to be lower than the deficit last year, and in two years it will be lower again. We are going to bring the deficit down slowly. We didn't get here in one year. We didn't get here in one year, and this has been a long process. So the goal is to bring it down over the next four years, leave the country in great shape in 2028. MARGARET BRENNAN: You know that the Speaker of the House estimates this is going to add four to five trillion dollars over the next 10 years, and there's that debt limit increase. SEC. BESSENT: Well again, Margaret, that's CBO scoring. MARGARET BRENNAN: That's the Speaker of the House. SEC. BESSENT: No, no, no. MARGARET BRENNAN: He said it last Sunday on this program. SEC. BESSENT: The- he said that's the CBO scoring. Let me-- MARGARET BRENNAN: --No, he said that sounds right. SEC. BESSENT: Let me tell you what's not included in there, what can't be scored. So we're taking in substantial tariff income right now, so that there are estimates that that could be another 2 trillion that we are the- pushing through savings. So you know my estimate is that could be up to another 100 billion a year. So over the 10 year window, that could be a trillion. President has a prescription drug plan with the pharmaceutical companies that could substantially push down costs for prescription drugs, and that could be another trillion. So there's the four. MARGARET BRENNAN: Treasury Secretary Bessent, we'll be watching closely what happens next. 'Face the Nation' will be back in a minute, so stay with us.
