{"id":686784,"date":"2025-08-23T19:10:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T16:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/when-theres-smoke-is-there-a-side-deal\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T19:10:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T16:10:18","slug":"when-theres-smoke-is-there-a-side-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/when-theres-smoke-is-there-a-side-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"When There\u2019s Smoke, Is There a Side Deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tIn a near-midnight announcement on July 1, Paramount Global said it would pay $16 million \u201cin total\u201d to settle a lawsuit from President Trump, who sued over an interview that 60 Minutes <\/em>conducted with Kamala Harris. Then, 16 hours later, the story took another turn when the New York Post<\/em>\u2018s Charles Gasparino reported that there was also a \u201cside deal\u201d that helped seal the pact worth up to $20 million of programming in support of conservative causes, which was immedia<\/a>tely followed by Paramount clarifying that it wasn\u2019t aware of such terms. And if it couldn\u2019t get any more opaque, Trump later confirmed murmurs of the seemingly backroom settlement by saying he\u2019d receive millions in advertising from the \u201cnew owners\u201d of Paramount.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo what exactly does the deal entail? It\u2019s a question two top House Democrats have launched an investigation into, specifically whether Skydance offered a side deal in exchange for the FCC\u2019s blessing of the merger.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis app<\/a>ears to be an offer of payment and benefits to a government official designed to achieve a specific outcome from the government \u2014 in other words, a bribe,\u201d wrote Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Frank Pallone of New Jersey in a letter to David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance.<\/p>\n

\n\tThus far, Paramount has denied claims that the settlement includes public service announcements and said it \u201chas no knowledge of any promises or commitments made to President Trump.\u201d It\u2019s maintained that the terms of the deal \u201care those disclosed by us\u201d in the July 1 announcement.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe same goes for Shari Redstone and Skydance, whose lawyer at the law firm Latham & Watkins reached out to the ex-studio mogul to say that chatter of a side deal were \u201cunmitigated false bullshit,\u201d reported<\/a> James Stewart in The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, Ellison is playing coy. Gasparino got the first question at the Aug. 7 Manhattan press conference with Ellison, asking about the alleged side deal. The incoming C-suite responded that him and his team weren\u2019t involved with the settlement in any way. His execs also declined to answer whether or not there\u2019s another agreement with Trump.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re ready to move past the noise,\u201d Ellison added. \u201cI\u2019m excited to put my head down and do the work and build this business with this remarkable team up here, not sit up there and talk about, basically, how certain things are politicized.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe politicization Ellison points to involves multiple conversations he had with Trump leading up to the FCC\u2019s approval of the merger, not to mention the private meetings his father had with the president as Oracle emerged as a possible bidder for TikTok. In June, Ellison and Trump were seen chatting ringside at an UFC event in Newark, New Jersey. Within days of that discussion, Trump had endorsed Ellison\u2019s bid to acquire Paramount \u2014 a point the lawmakers raise in their letter, which cites agreements between Paramount and Skydance filed with the FCC containing declarations that they haven\u2019t engaged in bribery.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGiven your actions, it is difficult to see how those agreements have not already been breached,\u201d Reps. Raskin and Pallone wrote. They\u2019re asking for a copy of the settlement, as well as communications between Skydance and Trump\u2019s team related to the merger. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the wake of reports earlier this summer that Paramount would settle what was widely believed to be a frivolous lawsuit, there was chatter of shareholder lawsuits alleging a breach of fiduciary duty. The other side was much less discussed: there\u2019s a good case to be made that Paramount\u2019s board of directors owed it to investors to do whatever it took to push the deal through.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI believed it was always in Paramount\u2019s best interest to settle,\u201d Redstone said in an interview with the Times<\/em>. \u201cWe may not like the world we live in, but a board has to do what\u2019s in the best interest of shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDoes that duty to shareholders extend to potentially extrajudicial efforts to lay a pathway to regulatory approval of the merger in the form of a side deal between Skydance and Trump? It depends on how the question is framed and who\u2019s asked. If there is an agreement for free advertising, Ellison would likely answer that it\u2019s separate and apart from the 60 Minutes<\/em> settlement. And since Paramount wasn\u2019t involved in those discussions, it can claim ignorance, as can Skydance, which has yet to directly contradict Trump on the terms of the agreement.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn response to a letter for Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont suggesting any additional compensation in the form of advertising from Skydance could amount to a bribe, Skydance general<\/a> counsel Stephanie Kyoko McKinnon didn\u2019t deny there\u2019s a side deal, only that the company \u201cwas neither a party to the lawsuit nor to Paramount\u2019s settlement of its litigation with the President.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReading in between the lines: a side deal, if it exists, may only be solely between Ellison and Trump. Indeed, Trump\u2019s legal team insisted to the Times<\/em> that there was an unwritten understanding between the pair.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI hope it isn\u2019t true,\u201d Redstone said in an interview for the story.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd if it turns out to be true that Paramount Skydance will run programming in support of conservative causes backed by Trump, that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean they\u2019d take the form of overtly partisan talking points on immigration or diversity. Hypothetically, they could already be running, hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a near-midnight announcement on July 1, Paramount Global said it would pay $16 million \u201cin total\u201d to settle a lawsuit from President Trump, who sued over an interview that 60 Minutes conducted with Kamala Harris. Then, 16 hours later, the story took another turn when the New York Post\u2018s Charles Gasparino reported that there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":686785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/3099145_0257b2.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[158353],"class_list":["post-686784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-david-ellison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}