The “Jay Kelly” star said if the networks had challenged Trump’s lawsuits, “we wouldn’t be where we are in the country.”

George Clooney says CBS and ABC should have told Trump ‘go f--- yourself’ instead of settling lawsuits

The "Jay Kelly" star said if the networks had challenged Trump's lawsuits, "we wouldn't be where we are in the country."

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on *Entertainment Tonight* and Popsugar.

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December 30, 2025 4:49 p.m. ET

George Clooney in 2023; Donald Trump in 2025. Credit:

Neil P. Mockford/Getty; Chip Somodevilla/Getty

George Clooney has rarely hesitated to speak his mind when it comes to politics, and this time the Hollywood A-lister is taking aim at major media corporations ABC and CBS.

In a new cover story with *Variety* published Tuesday, Clooney slammed the networks for folding in the face of President Donald Trump and his administration during a time the star feels is particularly precarious. "If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, 'Go f--- yourself,' we wouldn't be where we are in the country," Clooney told the outlet. "That's simply the truth."

The *Jay Kelly* star is referring to ABC News settling a defamation lawsuit by Trump over statements made by anchor George Stephanopoulos in December 2024. The network agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump's presidential library rather than engage in a public fight. Several months later, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a legal dispute with Trump over the editing of a *60 Minutes* interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris last October, despite CBS News lawyers calling the complaint "meritless."

Donald Trump during joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Dec. 29, 2025.

Jim WATSON/AFP via Getty

The move was largely criticized for the suspicion that Paramount agreed in order to ensure the then-pending merger with Skydance Media, which required approval from the Trump administration. Even more dissent was raised when the company abruptly axed Stephen Colbert's *Late Show* ahead of the decision after the show host criticized the agreement as a "big fat bribe."**

Both settlements came after Meta reportedly paid $25 million to settle Trump's lawsuit against the company over its decision to suspend his social media accounts following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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Clooney asserted that he's grown even more concerned about Trump's increasing influence over the media as David Ellison, Paramount Skydance's new owner, has seemingly been shaping CBS News' coverage in a more MAGA-friendly way.

The actor specifically called out the hiring of conservative commentator Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief in October. Paramount acquired her independent news and opinion site, The Free Press, and Weiss has been setting the stage for a broad overhaul of the news division, including launching new town hall series, the first of which featured Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative personality Charlie Kirk, who was killed earlier this year.

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Weiss recently made headlines for pulling a *60 Minutes *segment covering the stories of Venezuelan men deported out of the U.S. by the Trump administration and taken to a notorious El Salvador maximum-security prison. In an email to fellow correspondents obtained by the *Wall Street Journal*, Sharyn Alfonsi, who has worked on *60 Minutes* for a decade, wrote that Weiss "spiked our story" in a decision she deemed political, and not an editorial call.

Weiss defended her decision in a statement to outlets on Sunday. "My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be," she said. "Holding stories that aren't ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it's ready."

"Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak," Clooney declared to *Variety*. "I'm worried about how we inform ourselves and how we're going to discern reality without a functioning press. It's a very trying time. It can depress you or make you very angry. But you have to find the most positive way through it. You have to put your head down and keep moving forward because quitting isn't an option."**

Stephen Colbert; Donald Trump; Jimmy Kimmel.

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS; Andrew Harnik/Getty; Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty

Clooney isn't the only person calling out the Trump administration's controversial influence over media; several late-night hosts have been playing a verbal tug-of-war with the president for months as he and his administration feud with everyone from news commentators to the creators of Comedy Central's *South Park*.

Trump has repeatedly called for Jimmy Kimmel of *Jimmy Kimmel Live*, *Tonight Show* host Jimmy Fallon, and *Late Night* host Seth Meyers to be put on the chopping block. But despite the president's vocal resentment and urging, he won't be getting his wish anytime soon — all three hosts have signed contract extensions that will keep them on TV for most of his presidency. Last year, both Fallon and Meyers renewed their contracts with NBC to host *The Tonight Show *and *Late Night* until 2028, and Kimmel recently inked a one-year contract extension with ABC to continue hosting *Live *through May 2027.

Meanwhile, Colbert promised shortly after his show's cancellation was announced that he has no plans to rein in his criticism of the sitting U.S president.

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