In Oct. 2024, Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against Paramount, alleging the network deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris to manipulate the audience and give her an unfair advantage in the presidential race.

This month, the network settled with the now-president.

Under the settlement, $16 million is set to be allocated toward legal fees and Trump’s future presidential library.

Paramount also consented to release full transcripts of “60 Minutes” interviews with future presidential candidates “subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns.”

Executive Producer Bill Owens of the program “60 Minutes” refused to apologize for the segment, standing by Harris’s interview. Owens resigned from his position this April, stating it has “become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it.”

What happened to Stephen Colbert's show?

This week, Stephen Colbert, host of "The Late Show" on CBS (a Paramount-owned platform) poked fun at the settlement on the show, calling it a "big, fat bribe" and claiming the lawsuit itself was a "nuisance." Colbert told the audience how Paramount knew they could have fought the case, citing the network's assertion that "the lawsuit was completely without merit."

Three days later, Colbert shared that his show has been canceled and will end in 2026.

The announcement has garnered over 5 million views in three days on YouTube.

Across social media, alongside expressions of disappointment, users are expressing suspicion.

CBS and Paramount insisted in a statement that the decision to cancel the show was purely financial and "not related in any way to the show's performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount."

But may found it odd how this alleged financial choice came only three days after Colbert called out the network's settlement with Trump. Some fans claimed Paramount is selling out to attacks on media and free speech, and this resulted in Colbert's firing.

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Trump versus the media

Paramount's settlement with Trump is not the president's only dealings with the press.

In February 2025, he banned the Associated Press from the White House press pool for still referring to the renamed Gulf of America as the Gulf of Mexico.

In December 2024, the president filed a lawsuit against the newspaper, The Des Moines Register, and pollster J. Ann Selzer over a pre-election Iowan survey that predicted Harris in the lead. After Selzer was proven to be mistaken, the lawsuit was filed with the claim that the poll was published in an attempt to interfere in the election. That month, Trump also resolved a defamation case against ABC News, with the company paying him $15 million.

Why it's not so simple for Paramount

The question raised is, was Paramount so fearful of retribution from Donald Trump that they took any conceivable step to avoid his wrath?

According to the New York Post, sources said that Colbert's "The Late Show" has been losing between $40 million and $50 million per year. The production of the program costs an estimated $100 million annually, or $500,000 per episode.

Additionally, it's not only "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert that Paramount is doing away with, but "The Late Show" franchise itself. Stephen Colbert took over the program from David Letterman, but a transition will not be occurring this time.