Trump Sues CBS for $10 Billion; Wheeler Says FCCers Will Uphold Oath

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday filed a $10 billion lawsuit complaint against CBS that quotes FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington supporting allegations that the network deceived its audience when it edited an answer in an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats' presidential nominee. Meanwhile, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Friday said a future FCC chair in a second Trump administration would likely face considerable pressure to act against media outlets. During a Center for American Progress webinar, Wheeler said a Trump appointee could encounter a situation that no FCC chairman has "faced in the 90-year history of the commission.”

Former President Trump's threats, comments from Carr and Simington, and the lawsuit “amount to a coordinated effort to shape media coverage by threatening the licenses that broadcasters need to transmit their program to families across our entire country,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., during the webinar.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas, argues that editing a 60 Minutes interview with Harris violated the state's Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act. “To paper over Kamala’s ‘word salad’ weakness, CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news,” said the complaint. An excerpt of the interview that aired on Face the Nation a day before the 60 Minutes segment ran used a different portion of Harris' response to a question about the war in Gaza. The filing quotes calls from Carr and Simington for CBS to release a transcript and notes a recent news distortion complaint filed against CBS (see 2410180058). “The favorable public reactions to the FCC Complaint by two FCC Commissioners also speak volumes,” Thursday's complaint said. “CBS is hiding its tortious misconduct and the truth.” Carr and Simington didn't comment.

The suit was filed against New York-based CBS and Delaware-based CBS Interactive. It could be brought in Texas because CBS programs are shown in Texas, CBS has a Texas-focused web presence, and “oversees numerous local affiliates in Texas and employs Texas residents at both the corporate and local levels.” Cases appealed from the Northern District of Texas go before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is widely viewed as right-leaning.

“Former President Trump’s repeated claims against 60 Minutes are false,” said a program spokesperson via email. “The Interview was not doctored; and 60 Minutes did not hide any part of the Vice President’s answer to the question at issue.” The lawsuit “is completely without merit, and we will vigorously defend against it.” The lawsuit doesn’t appear to be a serious effort to win a court judgment against CBS, said Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, in an interview. Suing a federally licensed broadcaster using a state deceptive trade practices law is “a nonstarter,” and CBS is clearly protected under the First Amendment, Corn-Revere added. If networks could be sued using state trade laws for editing interviews, “it would be the end of broadcast news in this nation.”

“A free press must report, inform and scrutinize without fear of reprisal," said NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt Friday in a statement. "Frivolous lawsuits aimed at stifling this essential role risk undermining democratic principles and ignore the First Amendment’s protection of how news is reported. NAB stands firmly with our members against any attacks on their First Amendment-protected reporting.”

Wheeler said Friday the current FCC commissioners wouldn’t use the agency's power to target media at Trump’s request. However, he argued the FCC could lose its independence under some of the plans included in Project 2025. “I think we have to take the commissioners of the FCC at good faith” that they will follow the law and their “moral responsibility to follow the Constitution,” Wheeler said. The oath commissioners take when they are sworn in is "a big deal,” Wheeler said. “We all need to understand that [the oath] is not taken lightly. And I don't think that those that I dealt with and those that I've seen ... take it lightly.”

“We must take this threat seriously,” said Markey. “During Trump's presidency, we saw how officials' supposed principles wilted in the face of pressure from Trump and the right-wing echo chamber. The same could easily happen under a new Trump administration,” he said. If the FCC is brought directly under executive branch control, with political staff replacing longtime FCC staffers, a future chair could have a hard time denying requests from the president, Wheeler argued.

He added, even without a staff reshuffling, presidents can access emergency powers that would give them extensive control of broadcasters and the internet. For example, under the Communications Act, in the event of a national emergency, the president can suspend or amend rules governing radio and wired communications and can close any broadcaster, Wheeler wrote in a blog post last week. Those powers go into effect only in “war or a threat of war, or a state of public peril or disaster or another national emergency.” Yet the Communications Act is vague, lacking precise definitions of those terms, Wheeler said. “The tools to do whatever the president wants” are at hand.