{"id":66511,"date":"2025-07-15T03:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T03:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/66511\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T03:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T03:29:10","slug":"stephen-colbert-riffs-on-paramounts-big-fat-bribe-to-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/66511\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert Riffs On Paramount’s “Big Fat Bribe” To Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tStephen Colbert<\/a> riffed Paramount<\/a> Global\u2019s $16 million settlement of Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s lawsuit, calling the payment a \u201cbig fat bribe\u201d and joking about the prospects that new owner Skydance<\/a> will try pressure him to back off from humor directed at the president.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a clip from Monday\u2019s The Late Show posted on social media, Colbert joked in his monologue, \u201cAs someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended, and I don\u2019t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company. But just taking a stab at it, I\u2019d say $16 million would help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert was off when Paramount and Trump\u2019s team announced the settlement earlier this month. Trump had sued CBS<\/a> over the way that 60 Minutes<\/a> edited an interview with Kamala Harris in the lead up to the 2024 election. Many legal experts saw the lawsuit as meritless, and so did the Paramount-CBS\u2019 legal team, but the company needs Trump administration approval for its merger with Skydance.<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert also said in his monologue, \u201cThis settlement is for a nuisance lawsuit Trump filed, claiming that 60 Minutes deceptively edited their interview with then-candidate Kamala Harris last fall. Paramount knows they could have easily fought it because in their own words, the lawsuit was \u2018completely without merit.\u2019 And keep in mind, Paramount produced Transformers: Rise of the Beast. They know completely without merit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert added, \u201cNow, unlike the payoffs from ABC and Twitter, Paramount\u2019s settlement did not include an apology. That\u2019s good. Instead, the corporation released a statement where they said, \u2018You may take our money, but you will never take our dignity. You may, however, purchase our dignity for the low, low price of $16 million. We need the cash.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles: It\u2019s big fat bribe, because this all comes as Paramount\u2019s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert also showed a headline from Puck. \u201cSome of the TV typers out there are blogging that once Skydance gets CBS, the new owner\u2019s desire to please Trump could put pressure on late night host and frequent Trump critic Stephen Colbert.\u201d Colbert then pointed to his new mustache. \u201cBut how are they going to put pressure on Stephen Colbert if they can\u2019t find him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn announcing the settlement, Paramount said the \u201clawsuit is completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process.\u201d The transaction is still pending before the FCC. Some lawmakers, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have called for an investigation <\/a>to see if anti-bribery laws were broken. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert riffed Paramount Global\u2019s $16 million settlement of Donald Trump\u2018s lawsuit, calling the payment a \u201cbig fat…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":66512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[15327,15328,26871,69,36555,171,15329,16275,26873,13895,47174,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-66511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-60-minutes","9":"tag-cbs","10":"tag-cbs-news","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-electionline","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-paramount","15":"tag-paramount-global","16":"tag-skydance","17":"tag-stephen-colbert","18":"tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","19":"tag-tv","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114855134140822046","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}