On Tuesday evening, US President Donald Trump announced to Truth on Truth that Paramount and CBS News, a lawsuit, which he had strained against them, had to settle for significantly more money than originally reported.
“Paramount/CBS/60 Minutes paid $ 16 million today as part of a comparison, and we also expect $ 20 million from the new owners – in the form of advertising, PSAS or similar programming, a total of over $ 36 million,” wrote Trump. “This is another victory in a long series of victories over the fake news media, which we are responsible for their widespread fraud and their deception.”
In May, the Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) And Ron Wyden (D-ORE) had a letter to Shari Redstone, the chairwoman of Paramount Global, and questions about the lawsuit and on their possible influence on a planned merger between Paramount and Skydance Media. A similar letter was sent to Skydance CEO David Ellison on Monday, in which concerns were expressed that a separate ancillary business between Skydance and the Trump government was part of the paramount comparison. The approval of the merger has been in the executing loop of the Federal Communications Commission for months, but apparently only won the late night show by the long-standing Trump critic Stephen Colbert in the past week after the comparison of CBS News.
“Everything happens openly before all eyes”
“People constantly compare themselves out of court, but obviously it is a problem if they want a favor and offer millions of dollars directly to the person who can give them a favor,” Warren told Rolling Stone on Wednesday. “Everything happens openly in front of all eyes, and therefore it is so important to show the connections and do two things: firstly to name it publicly as long as the deal is still in the origin, so that everyone involved understands that they may violate criminal law. Secondly, because we have to work to receive a free and independent press.”
Trump’s public brags about the amount of the comparison with Paramount is part of a number of similar complaints against other media companies, law firms and organizations with which he reacts to supposed insults or attacks on his political agenda. At the beginning of this week, Trump sued Wall Street Journal for a report on a cryptic birthday letter, which he allegedly wrote to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“A loophole for Trump’s personal enrichment”
“Skydance and Paramount want to enter into a merger worth eight billion dollars – but this is what Donald Trump’s plazet needs. So they seem to have found a detour and have agreed to enclose a lawsuit that previously described them as unfounded – an assessment that practically every legal expert agreed,” said Warren the obvious attempt by the company to secure Trump’s favor. “So they offer very publicly to lock $ 16 million directly into a future Trump library-de facto a black money fund that Trump can use at will.”
“Trump is looking for any leverage that he can find to abuse his power and suppress every criticism of him. This can be seen in the media, universities and also at law firms,” said Warren. “He does two things at the same time: he enriches himself and switches off criticism against himself.”
Last Wednesday, Warren and a coalition by Democrat presented a law entitled Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act. The law is intended to close loopholes that enable Trump – and future presidents – to wash corrupt donations by financing their presidential libraries. Several actors – from Paramount to the Qatarian government – have led funds to his presidential library from Trump’s term in the first few months. “The financing of such libraries has to wait until the president is no longer able to provide certain business interests, criminals or others who hope to have advantages. This has to stop,” said Warren.
“The public must increase the pressure”
“No further complaint comparisons, no further million dutists for criminals who hope for pardon,” added Warren. In allusion to the difficulties of the Democrats to say goodbye to the Republican Congress, the senator called for more public pressure on elected MPs to contain Trump’s corrupt machinations. “It only stops when the Americans don’t say: ‘I am disgusted by the congress’ and turn away, but when they say, ‘I am disgusted and I will damn my senators and MPs to change the law.’
Warren has campaigned intensively in her public career for the expansion of consumer protection-a project that has suffered significant setbacks under the Trump government. She sees the bending of companies, law firms and even universities before the President’s financial authoritarianism as a clear threat to the common good.
“The billionaires who lead these large media companies may decide that it is in their own financial interest to alleviate criticism of Trump – but if they do it, they do without the role that the media played in our democracy,” she said. “The media, the CEOs of these corporations, owe the American public an open presentation of how they make their decisions on reporting on the President of the United States.”
“Of course we can all say: ‘Why didn’t you do it before?'” She added. “But right now these companies are under fire, and this president has challenged the reporting in a way that we have never seen before. There is nothing subtle – and that the managers of these media companies pretend that it would not happen is extremely worrying, because it suggests that their plan is to bend quietly and slowly.”
“But they made a mistake: they left me alive”
But if the organizations targeted by Trump try to buy themselves discreetly, those affected do not remain still.
“It became clear to me that they dropped our show,” said Colbert on Monday. “But they made a mistake: they left me alive.”
“I can finally speak the blunt truth about power and say what I really think about Donald Trump: I don’t think much of him. He doesn’t seem to have the right skill for the presidency. Just don’t choose a good choice,” he joked. On a truth social post from the weekend when Trump wrote, he hoped that Colbert’s throwing out of his account, the moderator replied directly: “Fuck yourself.”