STORY: :: Shari Redstone, Sipur Studios chair
"You talk about precedent setting. Every other company that had been sued by Trump settled within days. So the precedent, if you want to refer to it that way, had already been set. But to me, it was about, we had a responsibility as a board to run our business. And while I did recuse myself from the discussions and I have no idea how they reached the deal that they did, which I do believe it was the right decision.
I think the trial had been set for two years out. The chaos that would have been created over the next two years, I'm not sure the company could have survived. The internal distractions, the external distractions in spite of everything that we were doing in the company. And during those months we became the number four streaming service. Nobody was talking about that. All people were talking about was the distraction of the Trump litigation.
In addition, you know, Trump was threatening a lawsuit in Florida. You have no idea what discovery is going to show. And even though you think you're always in a good position, there are a lot of things that come out in discovery that you don't like. There are a lot of things that come out in trial that don't like.
The responsibility of the board is to do whatever they have to do to ensure the effective functioning of the company. So I do believe we have to continue to fight for fairness in news, fairness in broadcasting. I think we have an obligation to do a better job than we've done to remove bias. But the reality is I think it was the right decision, even though it wasn't one that I was involved with."
Redstone made headlines earlier this year when CBS announced the end of one of the most popular late-night TV shows, "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," in July.
The announcement came weeks after CBS owner Paramount Global agreed to pay President Donald Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit.
The former Paramount chair said she was not involved in the process of making the decision for the settlement.
