Veteran ’60 Minutes’ reporter says the network ‘crumbled’ under Trump’s pressure

A veteran “60 Minutes” journalist slammed the previous owners of his parent network, CBS, for settling an election interference lawsuit with President Donald Trump.

“Our previous owners at CBS faced political pressure and crumbled‚” Scott Pelley said, according to The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr, referencing the fallout over the legal dispute between Trump and CBS. Pelley was introducing former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens at the National Press Foundation Annual Journalism Awards Dinner last week. 

Pelley was referencing former CBS parent company, Paramount Global, before it was merged with Skydance Media, run by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle founder and Trump ally Larry Ellison.

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In the days leading up to the 2024 presidential election, CBS News aired its “60 Minutes” interview featuring then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Critics at the time noticed that an answer she gave to a question about Israel that first aired in a preview clip on “Face the Nation,” which was mocked by conservatives for her “word salad” comments, appeared to have been swapped with a different answer that aired during the primetime election special the next evening.

Trump accused the network of election interference and filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the company. 

After months of contentious mediation, Paramount and CBS settled Trump’s lawsuit for a sum expected to be north of $30 million, including $16 million upfront for Trump’s presidential library.

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Barr also posted on X that veteran “60 Minutes” journalist Lesley Stahl claimed she would have followed former executive producer of the show Bill Owens in resigning during the company’s contentious legal battle with Trump. 

“We would have followed him off the cliff, but he urged us not to,” Stahl reportedly said. 

Owens, who told his colleagues in April of last year that corporate overreach impacted his ability to maintain an independent newsroom. 

When he resigned, he told his colleagues in a memo, “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.” 

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A representative from CBS did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.