Wendy McMahon, the president and CEO of CBS News, abruptly resigned from her position in the midst of a legal faceoff between parent company Paramount and President Donald Trump.
McMahon, who had been in the position since 2023, pointed to a disagreement between her and the company as the reason for her exit, according to a memo sent to staff and reported by Reuters on May 19.
“It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward,” McMahon said in the memo, according to Reuters. “It’s time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership.”
CBS’ corporate parent, Paramount Global, began talks with Trump’s lawyers in April over his $20 billion lawsuit against the network’s news show, 60 Minutes. Trump has alleged the program intentionally misled the public in editing an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential race, accusing the network of an effort to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party” in the November 5 election.
CBS has repeatedly denied the accusations, and legal experts have told the New York Times the lawsuit is “baseless.” However, the lawsuit entered mediation last month, signaling Paramount could choose to settle, which has raised concerns over how that may embolden the administration’s increasingly aggressive stance toward major media organizations, the New York Times reported.
McMahon’s resignation is just the latest shakeup at CBS News amid Trump’s legal assault.
More: ’60 Minutes’ correspondent Scott Pelley calls out parent company Paramount
McMahon’s exit follows the departure of longtime 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens in April. Owns, who announced he would leave the venerated show at the end of the season, cited concerns about editorial independence, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
Owens said it had “become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” according to a note to staffers, CBS reported.
Trump’s disdain for the media is well-documented, stretching back to his early 2016 campaign trail days when “fake news” became a familiar chant, to the present day. The Republican leader, early into his second term, moved to block the Associated Press from the Oval Office over the president’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, and on March 14, signed an executive order attempting to dismantle the federally funded news outlet Voice of America. On May 1, the president signed an executive order to pull federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, imperiling America’s largest public broadcasters PBS and NPR.
The Federal Communications Commission is also mounting assorted investigations against CBS, ABC, NBC, NPR, and PBS, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, seen by press freedom advocates as a serious infringement on First Amendment rights.
Contributing: Reuters.
Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: CBS News president Wendy McMahon resigns amid Trump Paramount lawsuit
