George Clooney Torches CBS, ABC for Caving to Trump Lawsuits
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George Clooney criticized CBS and ABC for settling defamation lawsuits filed by the president Donald Trumprather than fighting them in court, and claimed that these decisions had clearly resulted in “where we are” as a country.
Clooney, whose father Nick Clooney spent decades in broadcast journalism, said Variety On Tuesday, the channel should have instead told the president “fuck you.”
Last spring, Clooney portrayed a CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow in a stage version of Good night and good luck just as CBS News was finalizing a settlement with Trump, which comes as parent company Paramount was seeking regulatory approval for its sale to Skydance. ABC News reached its own agreement with the president over a separate defamation suit in 2024.
“If CBS and ABC had challenged these lawsuits and said, ‘Fuck you,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney said. “It’s simply the truth.”
The actor said his concerns deepened following changes at CBS News under its new ownership. Paramount is now controlled by David Ellisonwhich began to reshape the network’s editorial direction.
Clooney highlighted the appointment of Bari Weiss to the editor-in-chief of CBS News as a problem.
“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Clooney says. “I worry about how we inform ourselves and how we are going to discern reality without a functioning press.”
Variety Brent Lang added that the actor was visibly animated when discussing specific people who he said had failed to uphold journalism’s core responsibility of holding those in power accountable since Trump’s return to office, although the report did not mention any names.
The interview, conducted in New York, was abandoned days after Clooney and his wife, a human rights lawyer. Amal Clooneyofficially obtained French nationality after years of living in the country.
