President Trump lists Rep. Ronny Jackson as co-plaintiff, Paramount as co-defendant in suit against CBS

On Friday, President Donald Trump filed an amended complaint against CBS in the Texas Northern District Court, Amarillo Division presided over by U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk. The amended complaint lists U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, as a co-plaintiff and Paramount Global as a co-defendant. 

The amended complaint alleges that the defendants committed false advertising and unfair competition—violations of the Lanham Act—and a violation of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. It asks for relief to Trump in the amount of no less than $10 billion under the first count, plus attorney fees, and relief to Trump and Jackson for damages in an amount to be determined upon the trial of this action, but reasonably believed to be no less than $10 billion under the second count. Additionally, it asks the court to prohibit the defendants’ “ongoing false, misleading, and deceptive acts, and the remedying of such acts by corrective action undertaken by Defendants.”

Trump filed the original complaint in October before being re-elected in November. The amended complaint claims his victory was partially due to the power of his media personality, “through which he creates and produces digital and traditional media content about news, politics, pop culture, and public affairs, some of it for commercial and entertainment purposes, and much of which he disseminates through his media holdings.”

The amended complaint states Trump overcame “persistent election interference” from legacy media, such as CBS and Paramount, which the suit alleges “manipulated broadcast and digital content to consumers for commercial benefit and pecuniary gain.” 

The original complaint involved two separate airings of the same interview conducted with then-Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris: the first during CBS’s “Face the Nation” and the second during “60 Minutes.” In the “Face the Nation” version, Harris answers a question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an answer that the original complaint called “word salad.” The original complaint stated Harris’s answer in the version later aired on “60 Minutes” was “more succinct.”

“Face the Nation” preview clip: 

Whitaker: “We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a cease-fire. He’s resisted. You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went anyway. He has promised to make Iran pay for the missile attack, and that has the potential of expanding the war. Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?” 

Harris: “The aid that we have given Israel allowed Israel to defend itself against 200 ballistic missiles that were just meant to attack the Israelis and the people of Israel. And when we think about the threat that Hamas, Hezbollah, presents, Iran, I think that it is without any question our imperative to do what we can to allow Israel to defend itself against those kinds of attacks. Now, the work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit and making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done which would release the hostages and create a cease-fire. And we’re not gonna stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region including Arab leaders.” 

Whitaker: “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening.” 

Harris: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.” 

Whitaker: “Do we have a real close ally in Prime Minister Netanyahu?”

Harris: “I think, with all due respect, the better question is, ‘Do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people?’ And the answer to that question is, ‘Yes.’”

“60 Minutes” clip: 

Whitaker: “We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a cease-fire. He’s resisted. You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?”

Harris: “The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles.” 

Whitaker: “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening.”

Harris: “We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”

The amended complaint says that by first disseminating the “word salad” version of the interview through broadcast on “Face the Nation” and posting it online, and then presenting the more succinct version on “60 Minutes,” the defendants “deceptively manipulated the Interview in a manner calculated to make Harris appear coherent and decisive, and thus the product more commercially appealing to Defendants’ audience.”

The suit alleges that this “deceptive action” was an act of unfair competition against Trump as a significant owner of shares in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (TMTG). 

“Accordingly, Plaintiffs bring this action seeking monetary and injunctive relief necessary to remedy Defendants’ unlawful and substantial broadcast and digital distortion that was calculated to give Defendants an unfair advantage over their media content competitors, including President Trump, and to deceive and mislead tens of millions of consumers in Texas and across America, including Plaintiffs,” the amended complaint states. 

As we previously reported, CBS filed two motions to dismiss the original complaint on Dec. 6. One motion said that the claimed damages in allegedly lost fundraising would have been suffered by the Trump campaign, not Trump himself, which was rendered moot when he won the election. The amended complaint addresses this by alleging that the defendants’ actions were an act of unfair competition against Trump through his media holdings by diverting attention from TMTG, including his social media platform Truth Social. 

CBS also said in its motions to dismiss that Trump was not subject to personal jurisdiction in Texas and claimed Trump lacked statutory standing because he did not plausibly allege in his lawsuit that he is a consumer within the meaning of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

The amended complaint alleges that the Defendants directed the broadcast and online postings of the interview to Texas for viewing by Texans, including Jackson.

“Those Texas broadcasts also injured Representative Jackson, both as a consumer of President Trump’s media brands and as a consumer of CBS’s broadcasts, online postings and advertisements,” the amended complaint states. 

The amended complaint claims the venue of the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, is proper “because a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to Plaintiffs’ claims occurred in this District by virtue of the Interview being transmitted by Defendants into this District through Paramount+ and on YouTube, and through KTVT, KTXA, KFDA, and other local Defendant CBS affiliates, including to Representative Jackson.”

Paramount was brought into the suit as CBS’s parent company. “On July 7, 2024, Paramount announced a definitive agreement to merge with Skydance Media in a deal valued at $8,000,000,000. The company plans to form a new entity known as ‘New Paramount,’ which would have an estimated value of $28,000,000,000. If approved by federal regulators, the transaction would close in September 2025,” the amended complaint states. 

Paramount requires the approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to complete this merger. 

The defendants were summonsed Monday and have 21 days to respond. Kacsmaryk dismissed CBS’s motions to dismiss the lawsuit as moot due to the amended complaint.