Steve Kroft doesn’t work for “60 Minutes” anymore, but he had some strong feelings about his former employer’s $16 million settlement with Donald Trump when he joined Jon Stewart Monday night on “The Daily Show” – which also falls under the Paramount umbrella via Comedy Central.
“I would assume, internally, that is devastating to the people who work in a place that pride themselves on contextual, good journalism,” Stewart asked Kroft.
Kroft said he does keep in touch with his former colleagues – all of whom pleaded with their employer not to capitulate to Trump in a letter to Paramount brass.
“I think there’s a lot of fear over there,” Kroft said. “Fear of losing their job, fear of what’s happening to the country, fear of losing the First Amendment.”
Stewart asked Kroft why the company did it anyway, despite that the Kamala Harris interview in question was hardly likely to stand up in court as election interference, as Trump claimed in his $20 billion lawsuit.
“Well, you know, a couple of congressmen think that it was bribery,” later calling it “a shakedown. … I mean, some people call it extortion.”
Kroft also noted that – as everyone knows – Paramount is trying to sell itself to Skydance, owned by Larry and David Ellison, who is “friends with the president.”
“Was this settlement just a payment so that this merger can go through and not be challenged by Trump’s FCC?,” Stewart asked.
“Yes,” Kroft responded. “But Donald Trump thought, ‘I’m gonna settle a score here … I’m going to go after my enemies.’”
Stewart said the (obvious) implication is that his FCC chair wouldn’t approve the $8 billion merger unless he gets “a tremendous amount of money … Now, that strikes me as — and I’m obviously not a lawyer, but I did watch ‘Goodfellas’ – that sounds illegal,” he said.
“Yes, it does,” Kroft responded. “I think it is illegal.”
Kroft said the lack of an apology in the settlement was important, and the news media isn’t perfect – but “It doesn’t feel like scrutiny on news networks. It feels like fealty, that they are being held to a standard that will never be satisfactory to Donald Trump. No one can ever kiss his ass enough.The $16 million was tribute. That’s how he looks at it. And that will continue.”
Watch the entire exchange in the video above.
