CBS is once again blasting President Donald Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against the network’s “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview as “meritless” and an attempt to “evade bedrock First Amendment principles” in a new filing with the Texas federal court.
The president has alleged that the Harris interview caused him “mental anguish” after being deceptively edited to make her look good. He also claims that its “false advertising and tampering” withheld viewers’ attention from him and his social media platform Truth Social, resulting in a decrease in value for Trump Media and Technology Group and his other media holdings while also violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Though Trump’s team has argued that the interview and its promotion on “Face the Nation” are commercial speech, CBS fired back that they provided the court with “nothing that would support the conclusion that the ‘Face the Nation’ and ’60 Minutes’ Broadcasts — involving an interview of a presidential candidate about issues of utmost public concern — are anything but fully protected editorial speech, and they cite not a single case holding that news broadcasts (or promotions for such broadcasts) are commercial speech.”
“Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected that argument,” the network added. “The First Amendment applies fully to the news reporting at issue and bars Plaintiffs’ claims.”
CBS also stated that Trump lacks standing because he cannot rely on “intangible harms” that are “common to the public at large” and that accepting it would “amount to greenlighting thousands of consumer claims brought by individuals who merely disagree with a news organizations’ editorial choices.”
“President Trump has not plausibly alleged that he personally suffered ‘an injury to a commercial interest in reputation or sales,’” they added.
In a second filing, also obtained by TheWrap, CBS argued that a case about an interview that was filmed in Washington, D.C., and broadcast from New York City does not belong in Texas federal court.
“Plaintiffs do not dispute that the filming, editing and production work for the challenged Interview took place nearly 2,000 miles from this courthouse. They do not dispute that the Interview never referenced this state. And they do not dispute that the people most knowledgeable about the Interview all worked in New York or Washington, D.C.,” the network’s attorneys wrote. “President Trump and Representative Jackson do not even allege that they watched the ‘FTN’ or ’60 Minutes’ Broadcasts from Texas when they aired. In short, there is no basis for jurisdiction or venue in this Court.”
They further urged that the case be dismissed or transferred to the Southern District of New York. The judge currently overseeing the case is Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who has previously sided with right-leaning groups on cases related to abortion and LGBTQ rights.
The high stakes legal battle comes as Paramount’s pending $8 billion merger with Skydance Media awaits regulatory approval from the FCC due to a required transfer of broadcast licenses of the media giant’s 28 owned-and-operated local TV stations. The deal, which executives have said would close in the first half of 2025, recently triggered its first automatic 90-day extension after failing to close by April 7.
If the merger is not closed by the time that extension expires next month, it would automatically be pushed another 90 days into October. After that, if the deal is still not closed, the FCC blocks the merger or one of the parties involved breaches the terms of the agreement, then Skydance and Paramount will have the option of terminating the deal.
When asked by reporters last week whether he sees the agency’s review being resolved soon, Trump replied: “I hope so. Ellison’s great, he’ll do a great job with it.” But he also took the opportunity to blast CBS for the Harris interview.
“What they did was they interviewed Kamala, her answer was horrendous, I would say election-threatening,” he said. “They took the entire answer out, and they took another answer from another question and put it in. And they did that, I understand, a number of times … We caught ’em, and they are very embarrassed by it, and they are working on a settlement now.”
Democratic Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden issued a warning to Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone last month that reaching a settlement in exchange for regulatory approval could violate federal anti-bribery laws. The California State Senate has also launched an investigation into the matter and invited former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens and former CBS News president Wendy McMahon to testify.
FCC chairman Brendan Carr has argued that the settlement talks with Trump are unrelated to the agency’s review of the Skydance deal. But he has warned that “all options remain on the table” in the agency’s ongoing investigation into alleged “news distortion” related to the Harris interview, including potentially revoking CBS’ broadcast license if the network is found to have violated the agency’s public interest standard.
Paramount’s settlement talks come as Disney previously paid $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit Donald Trump brought against ABC News and star anchor George Stephanopoulos. Meta also paid $25 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit about being kicked off Facebook and Instagram after the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
