Trump Uses the Threat of FCC Action to Intimidate and Shake Down CBS

Even before taking office, Donald Trump is already intimidating the media by filing lawsuits for actions that are clearly protected by the First Amendment. Paramount is considering settling a lawsuit that they would easily win, for fear the new administration will target their other business operations.

Deadline, an entertainment webzine, reports:

Executives at Paramount Global are discussing, internally and informally, what it might take to settle a lawsuit by incoming President Donald Trump against CBS News centered around a 60 Minutes interview with his then rival Kamala Harris, Deadline has confirmed. …

Settlements with Trump are flowing and capitulation in the air for executives of media (and tech) companies that will have business before the new administration. Disney’s ABC recently agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential foundation and library and $1 million in legal fees to settle a libel lawsuit over comments that George Stephanopoulos made on This Week in March. …

CBS parent Paramount Global has a very big bit of business pending—selling itself to Skydance, a deal that requires the transfer of broadcast licenses from one to the other. The transfers must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission. Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick for Commissioner, has said publicly the FCC will give the proposed merger a closer look, indicating that editorial fairness would be considered.

Even if this attempt fails, it warns media companies that simply airing an interview in which Trump’s opponents look good will subject them to legal and regulatory harassment. It’s just icing on the cake that this is also an opportunity for Trump to extort a multimillion-dollar payment.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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