The Most Pathetic Surrender So Far
Plus: A phone call, a tweet, and a botched troll.
“If [Shari] Redstone agrees to settle Trump’s lawsuit in order to push her merger through, it won’t just be a capitulation, it will be a stain on the legacy of the show, and on her own. The house of Walter Cronkite will have bowed before Trump on the world stage. It will forever be known that when CBS News was tested, it folded”— Oliver Darcy
Last week, I wrote this: “If she caves (as now seems likely) Shari Redstone should be forever remembered as the Quisling of the First Amendment. That’s it. That’s her fuqqing legacy.”
And, by all reports, Redstone/Paramount/CBS are about to join ABC and the cowardly brood of lickspittles of Big Law in truckling to the regime’s obviously illegal and unconstitutional threats. Via the NYT:
Lawyers for President Trump and Paramount, the parent of CBS News, are set to begin mediation on Wednesday over a lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump that accuses “60 Minutes” of deceptively editing an interview with his 2024 Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.
Legal experts have called the suit baseless and an easy victory for CBS. But Paramount is entering the talks prepared to make a deal.
In an April 18 meeting, the Paramount board outlined acceptable financial terms for a potential settlement with the president, according to three people with knowledge of the internal discussions. The exact dollar amounts remain unclear, but the board’s move clears a path for an out-of-court resolution.
Shari Redstone, the company’s controlling shareholder, has said she favors settling the case. She is set to receive a major payday in a pending sale of Paramount to a Hollywood studio, Skydance, that requires sign-off from the Trump administration.
The news comes just a week after the resignation of Bill Owens of ‘60 Minutes’. CNN’s Jake Tapper reported that a source who works for 60 Minutes told him: "The lawsuit was baseless. He” — Bill — “wouldn't apologize. He wouldn't bend. He fought for the broadcast and for independent journalism and that cost him his job. It's shameful."
As Oliver Darcy noted last week, pressure on the journalists came not just from the invertebrate corporate suits, but from the Trumpified federal government. Trump’s bogus lawsuit was accompanied by naked threats of state-sponsored retaliation.
Brendan Carr, Trump's Federal Communications Commission chair, has used a related complaint against CBS News to torment Paramount. Carr's approval is required for the Paramount-Skydance merger to close and it has been quite clear that a greenlight likely won't be given until Trump’s lawsuit is resolved.
So, in the annals of sordid surrenders, this may be the most pathetic, because it is most transparently extortionate. And it is hard to overstate the stakes or what this will mean to CBS’s legacy — or to the rest of the media who may lack CBS’s resources for defending themselves.
CBS would have won any fight, but it couldn’t be bothered to fight. This was no desperate act of a helpless victim; Redstone and Paramount have wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. They had a rock-solid case, and vast resources to fight Trump’s BS lawsuit. They have the fuq you money to tell Trump to fuq off; but rather than stand on principle or draw a bright red line for the free press, they folded; choosing to pay the tribute/bribe/extortion rather than defend the First Amendment.
Happy Wednesday.
The knee-bending by billionaire media moguls and the enshittification of social media by the broligarchs has transformed the media landscape... and made independent outlets like Substack more vital than ever.
To the Contrary is a reader-supported publication. No oligarchs. No billionaires. No weak-kneed corporate overlords. No paywalls. No ads. Just you.
Please consider supporting us.
To receive new posts — as well as cross-posts and the podcast — consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. (And I’m immensely grateful for your generous support.)
An angry phone call, a tweet, a troll, an EO, a confession, and a non-parody.
Six stories that tell a tale.
**
The phone call
Let’s start with this: “A ‘p*ssed’ Trump called Jeff Bezos after learning Amazon considered breaking out a tariff charge — CNN.”
The White House took aggressive aim at Amazon, with President Donald Trump putting in a call to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos Tuesday morning, after the company considered displaying the added cost of tariffs on certain items.
Trump called Bezos to complain about reports that Amazon was considering displaying the cost of US tariffs next to prices for certain products on the company’s website,..
At a briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the move a “hostile and political act”…
As is his wont of late, Bezos backed off, and Amazon denied that it had ever planned to tell customers how much the tariffs were costing them.
But the whole incident was, nevertheless clarifying — because it obviously touched a hot and raw nerve. Trump is desperately afraid that consumers will see the actual impact of his tariff policies. And itt also pulled back the curtain on the ways in which this Most-Pro-Business-President-Ever is prepared to bully and threaten private businesses that pursue a policy of transparency.
Journalist James Surowiecki described what happened here:
Amazon decides to make the cost of Trump's tariffs transparent on its site. Trump finds out, calls Bezos to stop it because it will make him look bad. Bezos - who is not even the company's CEO anymore - gets Amazon to stop it. It's an amazing story of government interference with the private sector, interference that serves no public good, but only protects Trump politically.
Exit take:
BONUS: What could go wrong? “U.S. economy shrank 0.3% in the first quarter as Trump policy uncertainty weighed on businesses.”
Hegseth’s tweet
Apparently anxious to distract attention from his various meltdowns, the dipsomaniacal chode who runs the Department of Defense put out a tweet announcing his latest initiative:
Community notes quickly pointed out that the Women, Peace, and Security Act was actually a Trump-era initiative. It was signed by Trump and — irony is on fire here — written by Kristi Noem (Trump’s DHS secretary), and enthusiastically supported by Marco Rubio (Trump’s Sec of State). Back in 2019, Trump’s White House declared: "Trump was the first global leader to sign bipartisan legislation of this kind, making the United States the first country in the world with a standalone, comprehensive law on Women, Peace and Security."
And here is Rubio less than 30 days ago:
Hegseth’s CYA? In a follow-up tweet, he insisted that: “The woke & weak Biden Administration distorted & weaponized the straight-forward & security-focused WPS initiative launched in 2017. So—yes—we are ending the “woke divisive/social justice/Biden (WPS) initiative.” Biden ruined EVERYTHING, including “Women, Peace & Security.”
Except, of course, Hegseth and Trump are in charge now. But instead of fixing anything, Hegseth shut it down. It almost makes you think he has no idea what he’s doing.
A botched troll
On Monday, Canadians delivered an unambiguous response to Trump — who somehow managed to snatch Conservative defeat from the jaws of victory. Right up until the end, Trump continued to troll Canadians about becoming the 51st state.
National Review’s Charles Cooke has some questions:
What did Trump get out of this ploy? What did America gain? What did Republican voters achieve? What was improved for conservatism, or nationalism, or MAGA, or whatever other Trump-coded movements are the supposed beneficiaries of his maneuvers? Where, as the old advertisement liked to inquire, is the beef?
Because, from where I’m sitting, the whole incident looks monumentally, comprehensively, impressively stupid.
Exit take: [Clears throat.] Well, yes.
Trump ‘s military EO
A reminder that this is not a drill. ICYMI, Trump issued this executive order:
I don’t think I need to go to great lengths explaining why it is problematic to use the military domestically — or ominous that Trump is lusting to deploy active military in American cities. Notes Newsweek:
This executive order specifically has increased fears around an encroachment toward martial law. The president has already called for his government to review the Insurrection Act, which would give more domestic power to the military, and now wants to provide regular law enforcement with militaristic material.
A confession
For the moment, let’s leave aside the fact that Trump thinks that an obvious photo-shop of Abrego Garcia’s hand was actually real. Let’s also pass over his meltdown when he was fact-checked. The bigger story from his interview with ABC’s Terry Moran was this admission: “Trump says 'I could' get Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador - ABC News”.
"You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk," Moran told Trump, pointing to the phone on the Resolute Desk.
"I could," Trump conceded.
"You could pick it up, and with all--" Moran began to say.
"I could," Trump said again.
"--the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, 'Send him back right now,'" Moran explained.
"And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that," Trump offered, before saying, "I'm not the one making this decision."
"You're the president," Moran told him.
Exit take: Coming to a court filing in three… two….
Not a parody
Fluffers gonna fluff. But Jesus.
Judge Hannah Dugan: An Update
Last Friday, Trump’s FBI arrested a judge in the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Judge Hannah Dugan has been charged with two federal felonies.
But her defense is impressively muscling up. Via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
The federal obstruction case against Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan has drawn an all-star team of legal talent.
Leading Dugan's legal team is Steven Biskupic, the former U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Wisconsin from 2002 to 2009. Republican President George W. Bush selected Biskupic, who oversaw a series of public high-profile corruption and police misconduct cases, including the convictions of seven Milwaukee police officers in the beating of Frank Jude Jr. Biskupic was a career prosecutor before his term as U.S. attorney. He is now in private practice.
The most prominent member of the defense team is former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, a Cedarburg native. As solicitor general from 2005 to 2008, Clement argued more than 100 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Clement, a conservative who was appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush, currently represents the law firm WilmerHale, which is suing the Trump administration after it was targeted by an executive order. Clement has been dubbed by some "the LeBron James of lawyers."
Exit take: This is not likely to go well for Trump’s DOD. ICYMI, I cross-posted this piece from former prosecutor Harry Litman: “The Feds’ Overreach in Judge Dugan Case.”
"[It's] hard to see how a jury convicts her beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed, if the case goes to trial, the feds will be at genuine risk of losing, ignominiously, on a Rule 29 motion based on a finding from the judge that no reasonable jury could find that the government proved intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
"In any event, here's my prediction that Judge Dugan will not be convicted on these charges."
Wednesday dogs
Five years ago: Baby Eli with Auggie.
Hercules may have been able to clean the Augean Stables, but even he would be hard pressed to keep up with the daily pile of manure coming out of the White House.
YES! List the amount of tariffs on everything!! It’s the only way the low information voters who elected this moron will understand that tariffs are an added tax paid by the BUYER!!