CBS anchor Margaret Brennan's latest dust-up with administration official adds to Trump lawsuit drama

"Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan has repeatedly been shamed on-air by Republicans, generating negative attention for CBS as the company deals with a litany of other significant issues. 

Shari Redstone, CBS parent Paramount's controlling shareholder, has done everything in her power to clear a path for the Trump administration's FCC to approve a multibillion-dollar planned merger with Skydance Media. Redstone has given lawyers the green light to settle President Donald Trump’s election interference lawsuit, although a deal has not been made, and has kept tabs on CBS News’ reporting on the administration. 

But if Redstone wants CBS News journalists to avoid irking Trump officials ahead of the high-stakes merger, "Face the Nation" anchor Margaret Brennan appears to have missed the memo. 

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On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called out Brennan for warning in March that Trump administration tariffs on imported goods would raise prices for American consumers after inflation cooled to a four-year low in April. 

"Margaret, when we were here in March, you said there was going to be big inflation. There hasn't been any inflation. Actually, the inflation numbers are the best in four years. So why don't we stop trying to say this could happen and wait and see what does happen," Bessent told Brennan in her latest viral clash with a Republican. 

Brennan tussled with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February after she suggested that free speech had been "weaponized" to bring about the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.

After Vice President JD Vance criticized European allies for adopting a "soviet"-style approach to censorship at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Brennan made nefarious inferences.

"[Vance] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide," Brennan said to Rubio. "He met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that."

"Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews, and they hated minorities, and they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews," Rubio told Brennan. 

The "Face the Nation" anchor also had a testy exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., over then-FBI director nominee Kash Patel on the day before Trump's inauguration.

She clashed with Vance in January over unvetted refugees in the country. She specifically asked whether he stood by his past comments that the U.S. should not "abandon anybody who's been properly vetted."

"Well, Margaret, I don't agree that all these immigrants, or all these refugees have been properly vetted," Vance said. "In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks in our country. That happened during the campaign, if you may remember. So, clearly, not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted."

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In March, Trump sat down with The Spectator’s Ben Domenech for a wide-ranging interview and was asked about the exchange Brennan had with Rubio.

"I call it ‘Deface the Nation,’" Trump said.

"Brennan is like anybody on the street that you could take and say, ‘Go in and ask a few questions,’" Trump added. "That was so bad, I don’t get how you hire some of these people."

While Brennan continues to irk Trump and his allies, her corporate overlords are looking to strike a deal with the president. 

Fox News Digital confirmed last week that Trump rejected a $15 million offer to settle his lawsuit. The talks are ongoing, but the president's legal team is demanding at least $25 million and an apology from CBS News.

The ordeal began last October when Trump sued CBS News and Paramount over allegations of election interference involving the "60 Minutes" interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris that aired weeks before the presidential election. The lawsuit alleges CBS News deceitfully edited an exchange Harris had with "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker.

Redstone, who recused herself from settlement discussions in February, isn’t thrilled with being tied up in litigation with the sitting president and wants to get things resolved. But not everyone from CBS News is on the same page. 

"60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens abruptly resigned in April, saying he no longer had sufficient independence to run the program how he wanted. 

Last month, CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon followed Owens out the door, citing tensions within the company. McMahon’s resignation fueled speculation that a settlement with Trump was looming, as she and Owens were both known to object to apologizing for what many media observers consider a typical editing decision at the heart of the lawsuit. 

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"60 Minutes" correspondents have been speaking out, adding to the ongoing headache for Paramount Global. 

Scott Pelley took a not-so-subtle shot at Trump last month during a commencement address at Wake Forest University. 

"Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power," Pelley told Wake Forest graduates. "First, make the truth seekers live in fear, sue the journalists and their companies for nothing. Then, send masked agents to abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing. Then move to destroy the law firms that stand up for the rights of others."

On Friday, Lesley Stahl admitted she was bothered by the situation. 

"To have a news organization come under corporate pressure—to have a news organization told by a corporation, ‘do this, do that with your story, change this, change that, don’t run that piece.' I mean, it steps on the First Amendment, it steps on the freedom of the press," Stahl said.

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"It steps on what we stand for. It makes me question whether any corporation should own a news operation," she continued. "It is very disconcerting."

Meanwhile, Redstone is set for a significant windfall if she’s able to flip Paramount to Skydance. Bloomberg reported last year that she would receive $180 million in severance on top of the roughly $350 million she would pocket from the merger. 

Skydance Media CEO David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, would take control of CBS as head of the newly formed Paramount Skydance Corp. once Redstone exits. 

He would also inherit Brennan, whom Newsweek referred to as "MAGA’s favorite punching bag" in February.