60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley warns a CBS settlement with Trump would be very damaging
“60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley spoke out about President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against CBS and its parent company on Saturday, arguing that a settlement would be “very damaging.” “Well, it’d be very damaging to CBS, to Paramount, to the reputation of those companies,” Pelley said during a conversation with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Saturday, who asked how harmful a settlement and potential apology would be to the network. Trump filed a lawsuit against Paramount Global, CBS News’ parent company, over a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris in October 2024.Fox News Digital confirmed that Trump rejected a $15 million offer to settle his lawsuit, according to a source familiar with the matter, as the president’s legal team is also demanding at least $25 million and an apology from CBS News.Cooper, who is also a correspondent on “60 Minutes,” also asked Pelley about former show producer Bill Owens resigning from the program in April.“Bill‘s decision to resign may not have been much of a decision for him because he was always the first person to defend the independence of ‘60 minutes.’ Bill didn‘t work for Paramount.Bill worked for our viewers, and he felt very keenly about that.
And so I‘m not sure Bill had any choice, once the corporation began to meddle in Bill‘s decisions about the editorial content, or just place pressure in that area, Bill felt that he didn‘t have the independence that honest journalism requires,” Pelley said. Pelley also said he wished he had the public backing of CBS News, but added that his work was still making it onto the program. “You really wish the company was behind you 100%, right? You really wish the top echelons of the company would come out publicly and say ’60 Minutes’, for example, is a crown jewel of American journalism, and we stand behind it 100%.I haven‘t heard that.
On the other hand, my work is getting on the air, and I have not had ...