Fox News’ Charlie Hurt framed Paramount’s decision to settle Donald Trump’s “frivolous” lawsuit against CBS News over a 60 Minutes interview – which has been criticized as a “bribe” to curry favor with the president amid a massive merger – as proof that the little guy can buck the “system.”
“It turns out that you actually can go up against the system and actually put up some wins like this,” the MAGA-boosting Fox & Friends Weekend co-host proclaimed Wednesday morning.
Just hours ahead of the company’s annual shareholders meeting, where many of the board members would be up for re-election, Paramount announced late Tuesday that it had agreed to pay Trump and his legal team $16 million to settle the $20 billion complaint he brought against CBS News over the editing of a Kamala Harris interview last October.
The president’s lawsuit, which legal experts said was baseless and would fail in court, accused the network of “election interference” for cutting portions of the former vice president’s answer to a question about Israel during the 60 Minutes broadcast. He would later add that the interview, which came weeks before his electoral victory, resulted in “mental anguish.”
While the network would argue that the case was completely without merit and move for its dismissal, Paramount's top shareholder Shari Redstone and the company’s board had pushed for a settlement amid a pending $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media, which requires final approval from the Trump administration.
With the CBS newsroom roiled with tensions over the looming settlement for months, the late-night announcement that Paramount was paying Trump off was received as one would expect.
“No one is a fan of Shari right now,” one network staffer told The Independent Tuesday evening. “People are still angry and frustrated and morale is very low.”
At the same time, while Paramount maintains that “this lawsuit is completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process,” the company is very likely to face civil lawsuits and perhaps even criminal probes over potential violations of anti-bribery statutes.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation, which had threatened to sue Paramount on behalf of shareholders if it settled the lawsuit with Trump, told The Independent that it is currently in discussions with its legal team about the next steps. “Paramount’s spineless decision to settle Trump’s patently unconstitutional lawsuit is an insult to the First Amendment and to the journalists and viewers of ‘60 Minutes,’” the group said on Wednesday, “It's a dark day for Paramount and for press freedom.”
On Fox News, whose pro-Trump personalities had largely cheered on the 60 Minutes lawsuit, the deal was portrayed as a major victory for the president. “Paramount, CBS forced to pay eight figures, change editorial policy in settlement with President Trump,” a Fox News headline read on Tuesday night, claiming that Trump could secure as much as $30 million from Paramount. (The company has disputed those claims.)
Appearing on America's Newsroom on Wednesday morning, Hurt was asked to weigh in on the settlement, with anchor Dana Perino noting that Trump claimed CBS News had “put their thumb on the scale before the election” with the editing of the Harris interview.
“The only reason any of this happened, much like with the University of Pennsylvania decision, the only reason any of this happened is because President Trump was willing to go and pick a fight that few Republicans ever want to get into,” Hurt gushed. “He has fought with the media every step of the way. He is not afraid of it. This is the result of it.”
The right-wing pundit also said he “loved the fact” that the president secured a “Trump rule” that CBS News will now release full and unedited transcripts of 60 Minutes interviews with presidential candidates. In the end, though, Hurt insisted that the leader of the free world getting paid off by a company that is seeking his government’s approval is akin to David vs. Goliath.
“And just a reminder of, you know, the guy is unafraid to take on any entity that is in his way, and it winds up paying off,” he exclaimed. “It turns out that you actually can go up against the system, and actually put up some wins like this!”
Co-anchor Bill Hemmer, meanwhile, concluded the segment by declaring that the money Trump secured in the settlement is a “stunner,” despite it being roughly the same amount Disney paid to make Trump’s ABC News lawsuit go away last year and a tiny fraction of the insane $20 billion he initially sought.
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