Steve Kroft, who spent 30 years as a correspondent for 60 Minutes, is speaking out for the first time about the $16 million settlement CBS News’ parent company Paramount delivered to President Donald Trump.
During a long conversation with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart Monday night, Kroft agreed that Paramount was only settling so they could keep government approval for an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media. But he still held out some hope for the future of CBS and 60 Minutes.
“The one thing that Trump didn’t get, he didn’t get an apology,” Kroft said. “And [Trump] had been pushing really hard. That’s one of the reasons why it went from like $1 million or $10 million to $10 billion.”
As Kroft put it, Trump “wanted CBS to admit that it had made a mistake. so he could use that against them and erode the credibility of the program and the network. But he did not get it. And that’s important.”
Paramount, the parent company of both 60 Minutes and Comedy Central, agreed that it would pay Trump $16 million for its minor editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris in October 2024.
Stewart pointed out the apparent hypocrisy of Trump’s lawsuit, showing a “more egregious” example of Fox & Friends editing out Trump’s hedging on the Epstein files in a 2024 interview.
Stewart argued that Paramount could’ve flipped the tables on Trump, and asked Kroft, “Why didn’t they fight it?”
Kroft replied, “They never said ‘we screwed up.’ They just paid the money... It was a shakedown. That’s what I’d call it. I mean, some people call it extortion.”
As depressing as the situation may be to Kroft and Stewart, Kroft still praised former 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens and head of CBS News Wendy McMahon for standing by their show.
“The executive producer of CBS News was forced to quit,” Kroft said, “And the head of CBS News in general quit, because they wouldn’t apologize... It was a very honorable thing to do.”
When Stewart pointed out Trump’s recent claims that the new CBS owner will move the company in a more pro-Trump direction, Kroft countered that just because Trump said it, “Doesn’t mean it’s true.”
