Jake Tapper blasts CBS owner Shari Redstone for ‘bending the knee’ to Trump amid ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit

WASHINGTON, DC: CNN’s Jake Tapper strongly criticized Shari Redstone, the controlling stakeholder of CBS’ parent company Paramount Global, following the sudden exit of '60 Minutes' executive producer Bill Owens.

This comes as President Donald Trump pursues a lawsuit against CBS over an edited interview with former vice president Kamala Harris in October 2024, alleging the network manipulated her answers to aid her candidacy, a claim legal analysts have dismissed as baseless, reports Mediaite.

CBS aired two different parts of a response Harris gave to a question. One part of the response was in a teaser for the show, and the other was aired on the show itself.

Jake Tapper slams Shari Redstone after '60 Minutes' producer Bill Owens resigns

On the Tuesday, April 22, episode of 'The Lead', Jake Tapper addressed President Donald Trump's claims about the '60 Minutes' segment, saying, “The president alleges that editing the '60 Minutes' interview and running two different answers to the same question helped Vice President Harris and amounted to electoral fraud. In reality, this is just editorial discretion. Editors do it all the time with recorded interviews, including all the time with taped interviews by Fox (News)."

Many legal analysts have dismissed the lawsuit as baseless and unlikely to hold up in court. Still, it comes at a sensitive time for Shari Redstone, who holds the reins at Paramount.

Redstone is currently exploring a potential sale of the company to Skydance Media, the entertainment firm backed by billionaire Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle. Any such deal would need the green light from the Federal Communications Commission, now under the oversight of the Trump administration.

Tapper weighed in, pointing to Redstone, who could rake in billions if a merger deal with Skydance Media goes through. “It seems as if Shari Redstone is likely to bend the knee to Trump and settle this allegedly frivolous lawsuit," he said.

On Tuesday, '60 Minutes' lost a key figure as longtime executive producer Bill Owens abruptly quit. In a farewell note to the staff, Owens didn’t hold back, saying the show’s editorial freedom had eroded under growing corporate pressure.

CNN report suggests Bill Owens bore the brunt of Donald Trump lawsuit

Jake Tapper read comments from two '60 Minutes' insiders. One source bluntly called the lawsuit “baseless,” explaining that Owens “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.”

Another source offered, “Bill had widespread has widespread support at 60. He’s dedicated his life to CBS. It’s like a guy who has been battling for months against an attack, unable to defend the broadcast from inappropriate corporate influence.”

The source continued, “He pulls the pin from his last grenade. He sacrificed himself, hoping it might make our corporate overlords wake up and realize they risk destroying what makes '60 Minutes' great. It seems clear now, in a quest to sell the company, Shari Redstone and others will bow to presidential pressure. '60 Minutes' is one of the crown jewels of American broadcast journalism, and they have no problem crushing it in their race to make a deal and make themselves richer.”

“And that is the context of Shari Redstone’s likely bending of the knee. Hope the money’s worth it, Shari," Tapper concluded.