President Donald Trump is very happy about his $16 million settlement from CBS — a feeling he went on 60 Minutes to share.
The 45th and now 47th president of the United States sat down on Sunday for a sweeping interview with journalist Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes, the very same program he sued the network’s parent company, Paramount Global, over last year and settled with in July.
“Actually, 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you,” Trump told O’Donnell in an unaired portion of their interview.
Paramount
Their discussion touched on several contentious fronts currently being advanced by the Trump administration, from violent provocations against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, to the increasingly unpopular immigration raids conducted by the Department of Homeland Security.
“I’m sure you’re not — you have a great — I think you have a great, new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise is a great from what I know,” Trump continued, referring to Bari Weiss, the former New York Times opinion columnist who was recently installed as the head of CBS News amid a massive shakeup at the network.
In August, Paramount Global completed a merger with a widely critiqued and Congressionally investigated merger with Skydance Media, a corporation owned by David Ellison, son of billionaire Oracle founder and longtime Trump ally Larry Ellison. Just one month prior, Paramount settled a suit brought by Trump alleging deceptive editing in the 2024 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, allegedly to help move the needle in her favor during her bid against the former Apprentice host for the White House.
Last month, Skydance bought Weiss’ independent publication The Free Press for $150 million. She was subsequently appointed the new head of CBS News, which oversees 60 Minutes.
“60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took [Harris’] answer out that was so bad it was election-changing, two nights before the election, and they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that,” Trump continued in the new 60 Minutes interview. He then praised the Ellisons’ Paramount takeover as “the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.”
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Another concerning development that occurred a month before the Paramount-Skydance merger was the shocking cancellation of The Late Show franchise after 33 years on the air.
Though CBS characterized the decision at the time as “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” critics blasted the move as another conciliatory effort at appeasing Trump’s FCC to ensure the merger went forward.
David Letterman, who preceded Stephen Colbert at the helm of the late-night series from 1993-2015, called the Ellisons “bottom feeders” who made a “gutless” decision.
You can watch Trump’s extended, full interview on 60 Minutes above.
