CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon has stepped down amid tensions with the Trump administration, according to a report in POLITICO. In a memo to her staff that the executive shared with the publication, McMahon wrote that recent months had been “challenging,” and that “it’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”
CBS is owned by Paramount, which is currently seeking approval from the Trump administration for a merger with Skydance announced last year, an $8 billion deal that is waiting for approval from regulators at the Federal Communications Commission. While the FCC under Donald Trump is not expected to have concerns regarding consolidation of competition in the industry, Chairman Brendan Carr is investigating a complaint based on the commission’s news distortion policy.
At issue is an interview from 60 Minutes with Kamala Harris from last fall before the election, which received official complaints filed with the FCC from the conservative lobby group Center for American Rights which claimed the interview was deceptively edited. A $20 billion lawsuit filed by the president against CBS News for the same reason last October also looms large. Legal experts have called the lawsuit “frivolous and dangerous,” while the outgoing FCC chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, called the complaint filed last year a “threat to the First Amendment.” 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens resigned over the matter last month, stating that he no longer had control over his work. McMahon publicly expressed support for Owens after his departure, saying that standing behind what he believed was “an easy decision.”
Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, said in April that she favors settling the case. Multiple outlets have reported that Paramount’s board has approved such a plan, though an exact dollar amount is not specified, and that such a move “clears a path” for a solution that keeps the company out of court. More recently, the LA Times called the move to settle a “payoff to the president” that would remove obstacles preventing the merger with Skydance.
