Paramount Officially Bribes Trump With $16 Million
Good time to cancel that Paramount Plus subscription!
That clickety-clicking sound you hear is people cancelling their Paramount Plus subscriptions, as CBS’s parent company Paramount Global has now officially kowtowed and agreed to pay “the library” of President and “prolific content creator and a media brand in his own right” Donald Trump a $16 million bribe over his extortionist, meritless lawsuit claiming “60 Minutes” had violated Trump’s rights by editing a Kamala Harris interview, cruelly making her look smart, which caused Trump and Captain Doctor Rep. Ronny Jackson confusion and terrible mental anguish.
Paramount had just filed for a dismissal, which was pending, and which they almost certainly would have won, because Trump’s claims are First Amendment-violating, stupid, and insane. But instead, Paramount asked the court for a stay on that dismissal to negotiate/let Trump’s lawyers dangle them by the ankles and shake them down.
Why would Paramount do such a thing? Possibly because Paramount’s CEO, Shari Redstone, hopes to get an $8 billion merger approved between Paramount and Skydance Media toot sweet, so she can retire off to a hot tub on whatever island multimillionaire media heiresses go to. And the approval for the merger rests with Trump and his FCC chair, Project 2025’s Brendan Carr, who has effectively replaced the FCC’s board of commissioners with himself.
That sure makes the settlement sound an awful lot like a bribe! But it’s not, claim Paramount lawyers, because the money isn’t going to Trump himself, but instead to legal fees and his invisible Presidential Library. Yep, that good old Loophole Library, which is already also funded by a $15 million settlement from ABC, $25 million from Meta, and $10 million from X. More knee-bending than a Billy Blanks Tae Bo workout! That’s sure gonna be one fancy library. Can’t wait to visit the 27 love letters from Kim Jong Un, and tour the cockpit of that Qatari bribe plane!
Sixteen million is still less money than Trump wanted: He had demanded $10 billion (yes, with a B), and then $20 billion, after he learned Captain Doctor Ronny Jackson had become confused and anguished by seeing Harris on the TV too. Then he talked his way down to $25 million. But in the end Trump got what he really wanted, the ruin of CBS’s priceless integrity, and the power to intimidate CBS into monitoring its newsrooms and kiboshing any stories that might irritate Dear Leader’s hemorrhoids in the future. We learned all that from Scott Pelley reading his bosses for filth about it, after “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens resigned over the corporate meddling and pending settlement. Then soon after that so did News President and CEO Wendy McMahon, who tersely noted, “the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”
And now when (and if, we guess) Paramount’s merger is approved, the chairman and CEO will be Trump buddy David Ellison, son of multibillionaire Larry, the CEO of data-server company Oracle, and one of the top contenders to buy TikTok. Trump can’t wait and has been purring that David is “great” and will “do a great job,” if that’s any indication of what the CBS news division will become under its new overlord.
The media ecosystem of untainted sources sure is shrinking. Time for a punch break!
[ WSJ gift link / Variety / NPR ]
There is no version of reality where Paramount would have to bribe a Democratic president with $16 million to get a merger approved.
This is blatant corruption.
Next Democratic president better anti-trust that shit and bust up the merger. And then do Amazon, just for fun.