Item 1 of 2 The CBS broadcasting logo is seen outside the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, New York, U.S., July 30, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
[1/2]The CBS broadcasting logo is seen outside the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, New York, U.S., July 30, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Summary
Companies
FCC chair says Trump administration reshaping media
Democrats say FCC actions violate First Amendment rights
FCC not dropping complaint against CBS over ’60 Minutes’ interview with Harris
WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump and the Federal Communications Commission have vowed to force American broadcast media outlets to make significant changes.
CBS may be just the beginning.
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“President Trump is fundamentally reshaping the media landscape,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr told CNBC Friday. “The media industry across this country needs a course correction.”
On Thursday, the FCC voted 2-1 to approve the $8.4 billion merger between CBS parent Paramount Global (PARA.O), opens new tab and Skydance Media after Skydance agreed to ensure CBS news and entertainment programming is free of bias, hire an ombudsman for at least two years to review complaints and end diversity programs.
Trump has repeatedly attacked broadcast networks for what he perceives as unbiased news coverage and called on Carr to rescind their licenses.
“The new owners of CBS came in and said, ‘It’s time for a change. We’re going to reorient it towards getting rid of bias,” Carr said. “At the end of the day that’s what made the difference for us.”
Carr’s comments suggest the FCC will ramp up efforts to rid mainstream media of what he and President Trump consider a deep and enduring liberal bias, creating an opening for more conservative views among the biggest media companies.
The FCC regulates broadcast media outlets, which use the public airways and are required to act in the public interest. Carr has cited the public interest standard in seeking the changes at CBS.
Democratic FCC Commission Anna Gomez accused Paramount of “cowardly capitulation” to the Trump administration. She also said the FCC was imposing “never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, in direct violation of the First Amendment and the law.”
Earlier this month, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a $20 billion lawsuit filed by Trump, claiming CBS News’ “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount did not admit wrongdoing.
Some Democrats have called the payment a bribe and vowed to investigate. “Trump demands allegiance from everyone around him and it’s disgusting to see companies like Skydance and Paramount bowing to his endless and illegal demands,” Representative Frank Pallone said.
Soon after being designated chair by Trump in January, Carr reinstated a “60 Minutes” complaint, as well as complaints about how Walt Disney’s (DIS.N), opens new tab ABC News moderated the pre-election televised debate between then-President Joe Biden and Trump and Comcast’s (CMCSA.O), opens new tab NBC for allowing Harris to appear on “Saturday Night Live” shortly before the election.
Disney and Comcast did not immediately comment Friday.
Carr told Reuters Thursday the FCC is not closing its investigation into the “60 Minutes” interview.
The Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday digging into the cognitive abilities of former President Joe Biden and claims of whether his aides helped what they say was a cover up of his alleged mental decline — claims the former president and many on his staff have denied.
The probe didn’t uncover any new information on the former president — with Democratic members of the subcommittee boycotting the hearing.
Democratic senators on the committee walked out of the hearing shortly after it began, with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin blasting the panel for even holding the hearing, while he says a number of timely investigations should be going on related to President Donald Trump’s current actions.
“So far this year, the Republican majority on this committee has not held a single oversight hearing, despite numerous critical challenges facing the nation that are under our jurisdiction,” Durbin said.
The GOP panel repeatedly accused Democrats — and the media — of concealing the former president’s alleged real health conditions in order to prevent Trump’s 2024 victory.
“Today’s hearing is about competency, corruption and cover up within the Biden administration. Simply put, the last administration was rudderless from one crisis to another. The Biden Administration failed and folded. The partisan media did their best to cover up those failures,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley claimed.
Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer listens to questioning during Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearings on how the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution in the Dirksen Senate office building in Washington, DC, June 18, 2025.
Mattie Neretin/Sipa USA via AP
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who was among the witnesses, compared his time working under Trump in his first term to his observations of Biden, praising Trump’s energy and mental focus. Spicer never worked for the Biden administration.
Spicer also criticized “legacy media” for questions raised about Trump’s fitness for office in his first term, while he claims they were not questioning Biden the same way.
“Many, rightly so, believe the media in this country is culpable in covering up the obvious decline of the 46th president and leaders of the free world — the president of the United States. The scrutiny that was baselessly directed at President Trump during his first term was wholly absent from the media coverage of the Biden White House,” Spicer claimed.
Republicans on the committee also focused on Trump — saying he is in command and makes skillful decisions.
“The public is counting on us to ensure this never happens again, because we won’t always be fortunate enough to have a leader like President Trump, who is so unmistakably in command,” Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt said.
Joe Biden speaks during a conference of the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) at the Sofitel Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, on April 15, 2025.
Tannen Maury/AFP via Getty Images
In May, Senate Republicans announced their plans to launch the probe into Biden’s mental fitness while in office — including his use of autopen, a mechanical device to automatically add a signature to a document that’s been utilized by several past presidents, including Trump in his first term.
The hearing also comes after Trump earlier this month ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Biden’s administration sought to conspire to cover up his alleged mental state while in office. The move by the White House represents a significant escalation, as it is a directive to the Justice Department to formally investigate.
Biden responded to the Trump order, saying “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency.”
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement.
In May, House Oversight Chairman James Comer requested Biden’s White House physician, Kevin O’Connor, appear for a transcribed interview as part of an investigation into Biden’s mental fitness and use of a presidential autopen while in office. Comer asked O’Connor to sit for an interview on June 25.
Sean Spicer, Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow for Law and Technology Theodore Wold, and University of Virginia Law Professor John Harrison testify during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the alleged cover up of former President Joe Biden’s alleged incapacity to serve on Capitol Hill June 18, 2025.
In response to the book’s release, a Biden spokesman said “there is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump — who often criticizes Biden — lambasted the former president’s use of autopen and claimed that Biden didn’t have control while leading the country.
“All these people, all the scum that was around the Oval, you know, the Oval Office, or around the beautiful Resolute desk, telling this guy here, ‘Do this,’ ‘Do that,’ and not even tell him. They just go over to the autopen and sign whatever the hell they wanted to sign,” he said.
Trump claimed that it was aides who were making decisions for Biden — employing the autopen to carry out an agenda.
“He wasn’t for open borders, he wasn’t for transgender for everybody. He wasn’t for men playing in women’s sports. But he has no idea what the hell — he has no idea,” Trump claimed.
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