CBS News in distress amid Trump’s pressure campaign: ‘There’s a lot of fear’

By Brian Stelter, CNN

(CNN) — Sometimes the arguments could be heard well down the hall.

The topic was “60 Minutes,” and the tension was audible. CBS News chief Wendy McMahon was clashing with her bosses over upcoming stories on the newsmagazine — in part because President Trump’s legally dubious lawsuit against CBS meant that billions of dollars were at risk.

“Wendy was standing up for us,” a veteran CBS journalist said. “There’s a lot of fear about what happens with her gone now.”

McMahon stepped down on Monday, under pressure from CBS parent Paramount Global, intensifying the impression that CBS News is in distress due to Trump’s political pressure and other business factors.

While CBS journalists are doing their jobs and covering the Trump administration assertively, Paramount lawyers are trying to strike a settlement with Trump, perhaps believing that such a deal will help secure the administration’s approval of a pending merger.

With the Trump tug-of-war on everyone’s minds, getting and keeping “60 Minutes” on the air this spring was a week-by-week challenge, according to people at the network.

McMahon repeatedly defended the program in conversations with Paramount Global co-CEO George Cheeks, who himself was under pressure from controlling shareholder Shari Redstone.

While some of the internal battles have been previously reported, five sources who spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity said the fights were much more fraught than the viewing public realizes.

There was one hint about it on-air, last month, after “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens resigned, citing a loss of independence. “No one here is happy about it,” correspondent Scott Pelley said of the interference Owens had sensed.

The alleged corporate meddling began several months earlier. One of the disputes was over CBS News coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Redstone, a strong supporter of Israel and Jewish causes, lodged objections over what she sensed was biased coverage of the conflict.

For a newsmagazine like “60 Minutes” with a long, proud tradition of independence, Redstone’s involvement was deeply troubling.

One of her chief complaints was about a January “60 Minutes” segment that highlighted America’s support for Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

McMahon mediated the conflict over that report, as well as multiple disputes over “60 Minutes” reports about Trump’s return to office and the impact of his administration’s policy changes.

It was clear, the five sources said, that Paramount was primarily concerned about how the tough Trump coverage would impact the lawsuit and settlement talks. (The New York Times reported Monday that Trump’s team threatened to file another lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” segment on Trump targeting big law firms.)

One of the people involved said McMahon played the role of educator, or at least tried to, “explaining the importance of journalistic independence” to Paramount leadership.

There is a long history of news division chiefs serving as firewalls between a corporate parent and a newsroom.

The big difference in this case is the Trump lawsuit over last October’s “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. The suit, while derided by legal experts as frivolous and laughable, posed a very serious problem for Redstone, who struck a merger deal with Skydance Media in mid-2024. That deal is now awaiting Trump administration approval.

Redstone has pushed to settle the lawsuit, despite the widely held assessment that CBS lawyers would prevail against Trump in court.

In a letter to Redstone that was made public on Tuesday, three Democratic senators questioned whether Paramount is in danger of violating bribery laws. That question has also come up inside CBS News.

At “60 Minutes,” “everyone thinks this lawsuit is an act of extortion, everyone,” a network correspondent told CNN.

The far-flung “60 Minutes” staff — while rarely all together at the network’s midtown Manhattan headquarters — is united in confidence that the program did nothing wrong, despite Trump’s wild allegations about the Harris interview.

But there is also a widespread sense of resignation that the Trump settlement will happen, one way or another.

Citing a source close to the negotiations, CNN’s Jake Tapper reported that Paramount could pay Trump as much as $30 to 50 million.

McMahon and Owens told colleagues that they would not apologize to Trump as a part of any settlement, so their departures may portend an imminent deal.

McMahon had detractors in and around CBS, too, and those people have pointed to other reasons for her exit. The news division’s recent reformatting of the “CBS Evening News” is widely thought to be a misfire, for instance, and the newscast will likely be retooled — again — once McMahon is out of the picture.

But “despite all her miscalculations, she was viewed as the last thing standing between us and Redstone,” one of the sources said.

When Owens stepped down, CBS journalists feared that in-the-works “60 Minutes” segments about Trump could be quashed. Journalists talked with each other about how to preserve the material.

According to several sources, McMahon worked behind the scenes to protect the reports.

McMahon, Cheeks and Redstone have not commented about the “60 Minutes” disputes.

Ultimately, the newsmagazine’s reputation has been protected. Week after week, CBS has broadcast substantive investigations about Trump and other subjects.

Ahead of the newsmagazine’s traditional mid-May season finale, a scheduled report about Trump’s planned cutbacks to the IRS was held back, but for sound journalistic reasons, according to the network.

A CBS spokesperson said that “the roughly 7,000 probationary employees who were dismissed from their jobs” at the IRS were being called back to work, thus changing the segment altogether. “Our team will continue to report on these new details and will broadcast the story in the future,” CBS said.

With McMahon exiting, her recently named No. 2, CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, will now report directly to Cheeks.

CBS journalists said they are hopeful that Cibrowski, an award-winning journalist and executive, will act as a heat shield with Paramount — and Skydance, assuming the merger is approved.

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