Top ‘60 Minutes’ Correspondents Pleaded With Paramount to Fight Trump Lawsuit | Report

All seven correspondents from “60 Minutes” pleaded with CBS News parent company Paramount to “put up a fierce and unrelenting fight” against Donald Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit in a May letter to corporate brass, the newsletter Status reported Monday.

Signatories included Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Bill Whitaker, Anderson Cooper, Sharyn Alfonsi, Jon Wertheim and Cecilia Vega, according to the report by former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy. The plea was included with their collective request to elevate longtime staffer Tonya Simon to executive producer, Status reported.

The letter was sent to Paramount co-chief executives George Cheeks, Brian Robbins, and Chris McCarthy. Paramount did not immediately respond Monday to a reqest for comment.

The famed journalists “emphasized that the show has always corrected any errors transparently, in keeping with its determination to serve the public as an honest broker of news. But, they added, when they are factually correct, they must defend themselves from attack,” Darcy wrote.

They also “pointedly expressed concern that Paramount is failing to put up a fierce and unrelenting fight in the face of Trump’s lawsuit over the program’s Kamala Harris interview,” according to Status.

As many legal experts have done, the journalists ripped Trump’s allegations as baseless, and “warned in no uncertain terms that if Paramount were to settle with Trump, it will stain the reputation of the company and undermine the First Amendment,” Darcy wrote, citing people familiar with the matter.

The revelation came on Monday, the same day it was reported that Paramount Global, CBS and Donald Trump requested a stay on all proceedings in their $20 billion legal battle until Thursday, as they are “engaged in good faith, advanced, settlement negotiations,” lawyers wrote in a motion filed with the Texas court.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that a mediator proposed a $20 million settlement, which would include a $17 million donation to Trump’s presidential foundation or museum, as well as millions in legal fees and public service announcements on Paramount-owned networks to fight antisemitism.

Trump complained that Harris’ response to a question on whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was listening to the Biden administration was different in the final cut.

The president is suing the network for $20 billion, alleging that the Harris interview caused him “mental anguish” after being deceptively edited to make her look good. He also claims that its “false advertising and tampering” withheld viewers’ attention from him and his social media platform Truth Social.

CBS News has maintained that Trump’s accusations of deceitful editing are false, explaining that the promo shown on “Face the Nation” used a longer section of Harris’ answer.

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