Words and Phrases We Could do Without:

Media behemoths’ “settlements” with Trump for nonsense litigation

Back when I was practicing law, most litigation “settled.” That is, neither side wanted the risk and expense of pressing on to trial and appeals, so they reached, in most cases, a monetary deal combined with a nondisclosure agreement keeping the amount secret. The latter was essential from the defendants’ point of view to prevent wetting the lips of other potential plaintiffs. Thus, two elements—a viable claim plus confidentiality—characterized the common resolution of civil suits.

Media titans responsible for defending, among other things, the freedom of the press have long resisted settling any libel/defamation claim. Once you go down that road, just about anyone reading or viewing an unfavorable story will have an incentive to sue. But that is not how things work in the Trump regime.

Instead, we start with rather (or utterly) unmeritorious suits brought by President Trump, “settled” by the payment of a large sum, which is publicly disclosed so he can gloat about humiliating the ring-kissers and knee-benders. Instead of nondisclosure, naming the amount is tantamount to howling from the hilltops to establish who’s the top dog.

These seem to occur in 3’s. First, Disney/ABC ludicrously settled with Trump for $15M based on George Stephanopoulos essentially paraphrasing Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s description of conduct for which Trump was held liable. Observers from both legal and press related fields were rightfully shocked that such a suit had been settled for anything approaching that amount.

Next up was Meta’s $25M “settlement” with Trump for removing him after Jan. 6. What? Kicking off someone who consistently used their platform to spread lies about the 2020 election and, along the way, to summon a mob to the Capitol does not seem unreasonable, does it? Especially when Meta (Facebook) has long maintained they have a right to determine who can and cannot use its site?

ABC News (with a straight face) reported: “It's the latest instance of a large corporation settling litigation with the president, who has threatened retribution on his critics and rivals, and comes as Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, have joined other large technology companies in trying to ingratiate themselves with the new Trump administration.” You don’t say! (Notice that the Trump claims are getting weaker, as the “settlement” figures are going up.)

And now, it has been reported that Paramount is considering settling an utterly preposterous suit based on the unsubstantiated claim that it “edited” Vice President Kamala Harris’s interview (which there is no evidence the studio did, and in any case, it had every right to edit for its viewership).

“A settlement would be an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network got facts wrong or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation,” the New York Times reported. “It could also cause an uproar within CBS News and among the ‘60 Minutes’ staff.’” It’s true: fussy journalists do get concerned when their employer goes around “settling litigation that they consider tantamount to a politician’s standard-issue gripes about a news organization’s editorial judgment.” But Paramount has good reason to placate Trump. As The Times explains, “Regardless of the lawsuit’s merit, Mr. Trump’s administration wields leverage. Because Paramount owns broadcasting licenses, it needs the blessing of the Federal Communications Commission to complete its planned merger with Skydance.” Controlling shareholder Shari Redstone would reap billions in the sale.

This media obsequiousness to avoid the wrath of a tyrant is nothing new. Recent history in Eastern Europe tells us that media outlets often buckle under the mere threat of political or financial pressure. Just after the 2024 election, historian Anne Applebaum told CNN that experience shows us that authoritarians can muzzle the press “not through direct censorship or closure, but through money and influence.” She explained, “A billionaire who’s close to Orbán would buy a newspaper and then change the way it covered the news, for example. Or in Poland, advertisers might be spooked by the government, fearing that if they appeared to support an independent newspaper they could lose a contract.”

The Contrarian’s publisher Norm Eisen and contributor Kim Lane Scheppele wrote recently in the New York Times: Viktor Orban’s “rise to power was accompanied by the aggressive use of libel actions to drain the resources of critics and to chill the aspirations of new challengers.” They added: “Mr. Trump has made no secret of wanting to weaken the landmark Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan, which creates a high bar for proving libel against public officials. (In 2014, Mr. Orban’s government changed the country’s libel law to make it easier for public officials to win libel cases after a constitutional amendment nullified the Hungarian Constitutional Court decision to the contrary.)”

Coming back to the Trump regime, can we really call these media payments “settlements”? They sure seem more akin to the $1M “contributions” media giants (including The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’s Amazon) made to Trump’s inauguration fund. In another era or another country, these might be called “greasing the palm” or “pay to play” or just “political donations.” (The MAGA Supreme Court has made it extremely difficult to prosecute payoffs—“gratuities”!—to public officials. The court Trump packed has in essence eased the way for precisely these grubby deals.)

In short, it is hard to see that Trump transactions with media giants are good faith settlements of real legal disputes. If these are “settlements,” then the word in today’s legal context has lost its meaning. Let’s do without it.