It costs 3 cents to make a penny. Trump says it’s time to stop.
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Why is Trump suing CBS and other media companies?
Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 11th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, what happens when ICE shows up at church, a pretty compelling argument to quit the penny, and the DOJ moves to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. But first, President Trump is aggressively going after media companies in lawsuits and winning. In December, Disney, which owns ABC News, settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump over a false claim made on the air. It agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump's future presidential foundation. In late January, Meta settled a suit with Trump for $22 million and another $3 million in legal fees over suspending Trump's account after the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
Now, President Trump is suing the owner of CBS News, Paramount Global, and he recently doubled down, literally doubling the damage claim from $10 billion to $20 billion.
CBS is the avatar for Trump's multi-front assault on the media and the news media in particular.
What is the legal basis of Trump's lawsuit against CBS?
NPR's media correspondent David Folkenflik told us what's happening at CBS is the latest chapter in Trump's attempt to use the power of the presidency to strong-arm the media. In this particular suit, Trump claims that CBS's 60 Minutes aired a deceptively edited interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris to boost her election chances. One example Trump's suit gives is a clip of Harris's answer to a question about Israel used on CBS's Face the Nation, which was different from the answer shown in a lengthier broadcast of the same interview on 60 Minutes.
Trump's legal team argued that CBS had engaged in, quote, unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion. What CBS said was this is part and parcel of what journalistic choices involve all the time. What journalists like you are confronted with in compressing a longer interview to meet the time imperatives of the programming
In December, CBS asked the judge to dismiss the case or move it to New York, where CBS is based and where the show in question was edited. The case was filed in a Texas court that's been friendly to conservative interests. Folk Inflect told us legal scholars and media experts say Trump's argument here is weak.
This is frivolous. And I've got to tell you, every legal expert I've spoken to on this say that this is essentially an abuse of the courts. There's no legal grounds that they can point to in precedent that would support this as voter interference. And in fact, of course, Trump won. Trump won in Texas. Trump won in the country. It doesn't feel as though somehow this interview harmed him.
How does Trump's lawsuit affect CBS and its merger plans?
CBS says during the campaign, the network also invited Trump to sit down with 60 Minutes, but after agreeing to an interview, he backed out. Further complicating matters, the outcome of this lawsuit will inherently be political. There is a pending sale of CBS News' parent company, Paramount Global, to Skydance Media. The Paramount-Skydance merger requires the approval of Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr. The L.A. Times says parties involved in the merger want to have the $8 billion deal wrapped by spring. It's been reported by the L.A. Times that the chairwoman of Paramount has instructed her team to settle the Trump suit. But that arrangement doesn't sit well with journalists at CBS who are calling for Paramount to defend their editorial freedom.
This really is a moment where journalists are watching their corporate owners bend to power. I've talked to former and current executives at CBS and their rivals. I've spoken with legal scholars. I've spoken with corporate attorneys. And I've spoken with journalists. What is happening now, almost uniformly in the views, is that Trump is exerting pressure to intimidate the press from doing things that he will take issue with. He's also doing it to show that he can do it. They believe he wants to make sure they don't act as a check on his power and that they are aware that he's going to make it hard for them to do so or raise the pain threshold to them for doing so.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why is Trump suing CBS and other media companies?
0:05–1:25
2
What is the legal basis of Trump's lawsuit against CBS?
1:25–3:05
3
How does Trump's lawsuit affect CBS and its merger plans?
3:05–7:59
4
What role do churches play in immigration protection?
7:59–10:21
5
How are immigration arrests affecting churches and communities?
10:21–14:37
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Apple News Today
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