CNN’s Jake Tapper slammed Paramount Global and its controlling shareholder Shari Redstone for “hoisting a white flag of surrender” in looking to settle a $10 billion lawsuit filed by President Trump over a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris that critics claim was deceptively edited.
Tapper made the comment during a monologue on his daily news show “The Lead” in which he described the controversy as one that “any American who values a free and independent press should care about, including Trump supporters who should not like the precedent that is being set.”
“For Paramount to settle this suit would be hoisting a white flag of surrender,” Tapper said. “It would be the network of Edward R. Murrow, at the behest of its owners, saying: ‘We will not speak truth to power. We will acquiesce to power at the expense of truth.’”
Tapper said that Trump’s lawsuits against media outlets were a “dangerous escalation” designed to intimidate journalists and to deter them from saying and writing things critical of the president.
He quoted a CBS source as telling him that “everyone expects Shari settles.”
“She is not concerned about her legacy [or] democracy or the work we do,” the source told Tapper. “It’s only about the deal. Her pocketbook.”
“Let’s call it what it is … it’s a bribe,” the CBS source told Tapper.
During the October interview with the CBS newsmagazine, Harris gave a rambling, 179-word answer on Israel that “60 Minutes” cut to just 20 words, according to transcripts released Wednesday by the Federal Communications Commission.
CBS aired the fuller version on its Sunday morning show “Face the Nation” as part of a promo for the “60 Minutes” broadcast that aired later that night. But the interview that aired on “60 Minutes” was a more condensed version — prompting social media users to allege that something nefarious was afoot.
The FCC says it’s investigating CBS for possible election interference, after complaints that the venerated news program cut Harris’ word-salad answers to make her look more coherent.
Tapper noted that Trump, whose administration needs to approve a multibillion-dollar merger between CBS parent Paramount and Skydance Media, falsely accused CBS of “[taking] her answer, in its entirety [and] threw it away and they put another answer in.”
“The ’60 Minutes’ editing case would almost certainly fail spectacularly in court, according to legal experts,” Tapper continued.
“But Paramount Global, which owns CBS News, is currently trying to merge with Skydance Media and in order to do that, Paramount will need the approval of the Trump administration — specifically the FCC.”
Tapper noted that Brendan Carr, commissioner of the FCC, said Trump’s complaint “will be considered” by the agency “before any merger can be approved.”
“The only way she wouldn’t settle is if Skydance sent her a smoke signal to hold off,” the CBS source told Tapper.
“Surely they realize a settlement diminishes the brand [and] value of ’60 [Minutes’] … which they claim to admire and want to own.”
Trump has called for CBS to be stripped of its broadcasting license.
Tapper quoted a legal expert, Charles Tobin, as saying Trump’s lawsuit constituted a “frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.”
“Broadcasters have a right to edit interviews,” Tapper said. “It’s editorial judgment.”
The CNN anchor cited a Semafor report from last June that said that Fox News, which shares common ownership with The Post, removed a segment from an interview with Trump in which he appeared to walk back a promise to declassify federal files related to the late convicted pedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“Fox had every right to make that edit,” Tapper said. “Did that edit make Trump look more decisive, less equivocating? Did it make Trump, therefore, look better? Yep.”
The CNN anchor noted that Fox News “cut down significantly” footage of Trump at a Bronx barbershop.
The Post has sought comment from Paramount Global, CBS and Trump.
