{"id":26758,"date":"2025-05-05T18:56:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T18:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=26758"},"modified":"2025-05-05T18:56:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T18:56:03","slug":"paramount-executives-ax-plans-for-loose-cannon-politics-show-in-bid-to-keep-trump-happy-as-60-minutes-scandal-escalates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=26758","title":{"rendered":"Paramount executives ax plans for ‘loose cannon’ politics show in bid to keep Trump happy as 60 Minutes scandal escalates"},"content":{"rendered":"

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CBS’s parent company<\/a><\/span>\u00a0has pulled back on plans to use one of its most popular shows to motivate Americans to consider running for local office.<\/p>\n

The move,\u00a0first reported by\u00a0Semafor<\/a>, was made by officials at Paramount out of fear of more retaliation from\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Trump and his Federal Communications Commission<\/a><\/span>\u00a0are probing coverage of another Paramount property, CBS News over its flagship current affairs show 60 Minutes.<\/p>\n

The now-delayed Daily Show initiative, called ‘Take A Seat,’ was meant to launch this week.<\/p>\n

Sources familiar with the situation said the initiative will now launch later this month –\u00a0 with a new nonpartisan partner – and\u00a0that the entertainment company\u00a0<\/a><\/span>will no longer be working alongside firms with\u00a0explicit political affiliations.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

As of writing,\u00a0Jon Stewart<\/a><\/span>\u00a0has made no mention of the partnership, which was designed to put prospective candidates on track to finding what office they are best-suited for – before\u00a0helping them launch their respective campaigns.<\/p>\n

Orgs originally tapped by Paramount to oversee this process were\u00a0the veterans group New Politics Leadership Academy, the progressive group Run For Something, and the right-leaning Women\u2019s Public Leadership Network.<\/p>\n

All those partnerships have now been abandoned, because brass reportedly decided they simply carry too much risk – at a time where\u00a0Trump’s 60 Minutes lawsuit\u00a0<\/a><\/span>has already thrust a looming merger with Skydance into uncertainty.<\/p>\n

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CBS’s parent company – Shari Redstone-led Paramount – has reversed plans to use one of its most popular shows to motivate Americans to mull a run for local office<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The move was made by officials at Paramount, fearing retaliation from Donald Trump. The now-delayed Daily Show initiative, called ‘Take A Seat,’ was meant to launch this week<\/p>\n

‘Be the leader you\u2019ve been complaining for!’ copy promoting the effort online still reads.<\/p>\n

‘The Daily Show\u2019s InDecision: Take A Seat is our effort to shine a light on local and state offices that you might not even know are out there, and encourage YOU to throw your hat in the ring,’ it continues, after quietly going up on the Comedy Central section of the Paramount Global website unannounced.<\/p>\n

The page was deleted<\/a>\u00a0sometime during the writing of this article, around 11am ET.<\/p>\n

‘If you\u2019re tired of complaining about who\u2019s running things and want other people to complain about how YOU\u2019RE running things, then now is your moment!’<\/p>\n

It concludes: ‘You may be the exact leader your community needs, but you won\u2019t know until you try.’<\/p>\n

At the bottom of the page, the three pulled partnerships remain listed – despite now being set to be replaced by a nonpartisan nonprofit that will help political outsiders locate open positions.<\/p>\n

Input from Paramount\u2019s government affairs division helped fuel the decision, those familiar said – though a Paramount official who spoke to Semafor insisted otherwise.<\/p>\n

They said the government team was not involved in the talks to terminate the partnerships, but confirmed Paramount will no longer be teaming up with such organizations due to the political connotations they bring.<\/p>\n

Comedy Central – the home of the left-leaning, satirical Daily Show – has yet to promote the initiative.<\/p>\n

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A page promoting the effort was deleted from Paramount’s website around 11am ET Monday. Semafor reported on the decision – which sources said was made out of fear of more retaliation from the president – just hours earlier<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Presenters such as Stewart, Michael Kosta, and Desi Lydic have continued to criticize the president in the meantime, leaving their higher-ups at the struggling entertainment behemoth above them to worry about risk.<\/p>\n

Spurring such worries is none other than CBS, whose most successful news program, 60 Minutes, is at the center of a high-stakes legal battle with the president.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the\u00a0New York Times<\/a><\/span>\u00a0reported Paramount, in its capacity as CBS’s parent, is entering into talks with\u00a0Trump<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to resolve claims that ’60 Minutes’ deceptively edited an interview with his 2020 presidential opponent,\u00a0Kamala Harris<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Shari Redstone, daughter of the late media magnate Sumner Redstone and the person effectively in control of Paramount, has said she wants to resolve the dispute, while keeping tabs on 60 Minutes’ style of coverage as well.<\/p>\n

An abrupt resignation of a top producer, Bill Owens, and a jarring on-air diatribe against Paramount offered on-air last week by Scott Pelley, has framed the parent company’s continued stance as an unforgivable sin – at least from the perspective of CBS’s newsroom.<\/p>\n

Pelley, in his rant, claimed ‘Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways’ ahead of the merger, which has sat in limbo as the FCC continues to probe whether the Harris interview violated federal ‘news distortion’ rules.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, the agency has continued to remind Paramount that it may not approve the merger if it finds CBS staffers engaged in bias by ‘deceptively’ editing the 60 Minutes interview, to the point it could constitute ‘distortion.’<\/p>\n

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Redstone, daughter of the late media magnate Sumner Redstone and the person effectively in control of Paramount, has said she wants to resolve a suit filed by the president over 60 Minutes’ October interview with Kamala Harris<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An abrupt resignation of a top producer, Bill Owens, and a jarring on-air diatribe against Paramount offered on-air last week by Scott Pelley, has framed the parent company’s continued stance as an unforgivable sin – at least from the perspective those in CBS’s newsroom<\/p>\n

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Trump is suing CBS News over its 60 Minutes interview with his opponent, Kamala Harris , prior to the 2024 election. Pelley claimed ‘Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways’ ahead of the merger, which has sat in limbo as the FCC continues to probe its practices<\/p>\n

In resigning, Owens said he had ‘lost the independence that honest journalism requires.’<\/p>\n

Paramount has yet to block any CBS stories or reports.<\/p>\n

DailyMail.com has reached out to Paramount for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    CBS’s parent company\u00a0has pulled back on plans to use one of its most popular shows to motivate Americans to consider running for local office. The move,\u00a0first reported by\u00a0Semafor, … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26760,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26758\/revisions\/26760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}