Paramount Settles Trump ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit for $16 Million

Paramount Global has agreed to pay President Donald Trump $16 million to settle a federal lawsuit over the editing of a October 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with then-vice-president Kamala Harris. Court papers filed late Tuesday show the payment ends nearly eight months of litigation that has pitted the White House against the parent company of CBS News.

Trump filed the case in Amarillo, Texas, days before the 2024 election, alleging the broadcast deceptively edited Harris’s remarks and misled voters, a violation of Texas consumer-protection law. The suit, originally seeking as much as $20 billion in damages, was widely viewed by First Amendment scholars as weak, and Paramount had moved to have it dismissed.

Under the agreement, Paramount will cover Trump’s legal fees, with the remainder earmarked for his future presidential library. The settlement includes no apology or admission of wrongdoing but requires “60 Minutes” to publish full transcripts of future interviews with U.S. presidential candidates, subject to national-security redactions.

The payment arrives as Paramount pursues an approximately $8 billion sale to Skydance Media that needs Federal Communications Commission approval. Some company insiders say resolving the lawsuit removes a potential obstacle to that deal. Press-freedom advocates and several CBS journalists warned the settlement could embolden further litigation by the administration, noting Disney made a similar $16 million payment to Trump last year in a separate defamation dispute.