ABC News, Facebook, and Paramount’s CBS have all paid millions to Trump over attempts to silence, censor, or maliciously impair his political career.
President Donald Trump has triumphed in his legal crusade against the media, securing a staggering $56 million in settlements from three major companies: ABC News, Meta (Facebook), and Paramount Global. The payouts follow a series of lawsuits in which Trump accused the media giants of defamation, censorship, and deceptive practices.
The settlements allow each of the media companies to forgo the process of discovery, where the corporations would have to turn over some potentially embarrassing documents that might further deepen American’s distrust in some of the largest news organizations on the planet.
The most recent victory came on July 1 of this year, when Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, agreed to pay $16 million to Trump’s presidential library. The settlement resolves a lawsuit Trump filed in October 2024, alleging that CBS deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris to favor Democrats. While CBS denied any wrongdoing, the company settled amid pressure and committed to releasing transcripts of future candidate interviews, with redactions as needed.
In CBS’s case, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) actually obtained and released the full, unedited version of the video, as well as a transcript, because the edits to make Vice President Kamala Harris appear better were so egregious.
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