Longtime CBS journalist Lesley Stahl admitted she was “angry” with Paramount Global chairwoman Shari Redstone over how things are being handled over President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the network on Friday.
The “60 Minutes” reporter discussed the ongoing lawsuit and its effects on her program on The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast. She reflected on top producer Bill Owens stepping down in what she called a “painful” experience after he claimed that he was being restrained by the network on what stories to produce.
After CBS News president Wendy McMahon’s abrupt resignation, she called the situation at the network “hard” and partially blamed Redstone for putting pressure on them in what appears to be an appeasement to the Trump administration.
“To have a news organization come under corporate pressure—to have a news organization told by a corporation, ‘do this, do that with your story, change this, change that, don’t run that piece.’ I mean, it steps on the First Amendment, it steps on the freedom of the press,” Stahl said. “It steps on what we stand for. It makes me question whether any corporation should own a news operation. It is very disconcerting.”
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Still, she declined to use the word “turmoil” to describe the situation, although she revealed there was consideration for journalists to leave “en masse” after Owens’ resignation. Stahl added that there’s a sense of “fragility” in the press now thanks to things like Trump’s “frivolous lawsuit” and a lack of trust in the media.
“The pain in my heart is that the public does not appreciate the importance of a free and strong and tough press in our democracy,” Stahl said. “Even the Founding Fathers recognized that we need to have a strong fourth estate to hold our elected officials accountable, and to continue to cleanse the system. The public doesn’t seem to want what we do to be part of our public life.”
She predicted Paramount Global, CBS’ parent company, will ultimately settle with Trump to complete a merger with Skydance Media. If that were to occur, she hoped that the new owners would “hold the freedom of the press up as a beacon.”
The interview was recorded before news broke on Friday about Trump rejecting a $15 million settlement for his $20 billion lawsuit. Fox News Digital confirmed that the president’s team is demanding at least $25 million and an apology from CBS News.
Last October, Trump sued CBS News and Paramount for $10 billion over allegations of election interference involving the “60 Minutes” interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris that aired weeks before the presidential election (the amount has since jumped to $20 billion).
The lawsuit alleges CBS News deceitfully edited an exchange Harris had with “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker, who asked her why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t “listening” to the Biden administration. Harris was widely mocked for the “word salad” answer that aired in a preview clip of the interview on “Face the Nation.”
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However, when the same question aired during a primetime special on the network, Harris had a different, more concise response. Critics at the time accused CBS News of deceitfully editing Harris’ “word salad” answer to shield the Democratic nominee from further backlash leading up to Election Day.
Stahl denied there was any effort to make Harris look better and that the network simply aired two different halves of the answer. She claimed the lawsuit is being made only to intimidate them.
“What is really behind it, in a nutshell, is [an effort] to chill us. There aren’t any damages. I mean, he accused us of editing Kamala Harris in a way to help her win the election. But he won the election,” Stahl said.
Fox News Digital reached out to CBS and Paramount Global for a comment.
Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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