The leadership of CBS News, the network set to host 2024’s only vice presidential debate, is rife with Democratic donors, FEC records show.
In what could be the last debate of the election cycle, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are set to face off on Oct. 1 in a vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News. Leadership of the network and its parent company, Paramount, have previously made donations to the Biden and Harris campaigns and numerous other Democrats, according to public records reviewed by the Daily Caller. (RELATED: Trump Says He Will Not Debate Harris Again)
Among those who have donated to Democrats is Charles E. Phillips Jr., a member of Paramount’s board of directors. Between 2020 and 2023, Phillips donated $100,000 each to Biden, Harris and Pelosi’s victory fund, FEC records show.
Judith A. McHale, another member of Paramount’s board who chairs the compensation committee, donated $47,900 to the Biden Victory Fund in May of 2023, $50,000 to the Biden Victory Fund in 2020 and more than $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee, according to public records. McHale has also donated tens of thousands of dollars to support various Democratic candidates and groups including Pennsylvania Senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman and the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
Linda Griego, a member of the Paramount board of directors and the compensation and governance committees, also appears to also be a Democratic donor. Thousands of dollars have been given to Democrats by a “Linda Griego” from New Mexico in recent years, including more than $10,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, FEC records show. Records list the donor’s occupation as a retired executive, and she revealed she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in early 2020.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris listens as former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
In the 2020 election cycle, George Cheeks, the CEO of Paramount Global and president and CEO of CBS, donated $400 to Biden’s campaign, $200 to the Biden Victory Fund, $100 to the Pennsylvania Democratic party and to Democratic Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, according to FEC records. Wendy McMahon, the president and CEO of CBS News and Television Stations, donated $3,050 to Biden for President and $3,050 to the Biden Victory Fund in 2020, public records show. At the time, McMahon was at ABC News. She has not made any donations since making the jump to CBS.
The Daily Caller reviewed the leadership teams for Paramount and CBS and only discovered one executive who recently donated to Republicans: Paul Wiser, the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Paramount. In the 2024 election cycle, Wiser made donations in support of the candidacies of Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, amounting to $520.50 and $100, respectively. He also made $250 in unspecified donations to WinRed, a popular Republican fundraising platform.
Justin Dini, executive vice president and head of communications of Paramount, appears to have donated at least $535 to Harris for President, $335 to the Harris Victory Fund, and $800 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as part of a longstanding recurring donation in the 2024 election cycle, according to FEC records.
Dini donated to Harris’s 2020 White House bid the day after her infamous debate moment where she implied Joe Biden supported racist policy and was too close with old racist colleagues in the Senate.
Other members of the CBS and Paramount leadership team made contributions to other Democratic campaigns. Claudine Milne, senior vice president of standards and practices for CBS News and Stations, donated $50 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in September of 2020, records show. DeDe Lea, executive vice president of Paramount Global public policy and government relations, gave $5,000 to Democrat Angela Alsobrooks’s campaign for senate, $500 to Glenn Ivey’s run for congress and $500 to Joyce Beatty’s congressional bid in 2022, according to FEC records.
Neither of the debate moderators, Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, appear to have made any political donations.
CBS and Paramount did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.
People watch the presidential debate during a debate watch party at Shaw’s Tavern on September 10, 2024 in Washington, DC. Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump face off in their first debate Tuesday evening at The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Bias in debate moderation was a major story when Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off last Tuesday in what seems to be the last presidential debate of the election cycle. After the forum, many conservative pundits and commentators voiced their frustration with ABC News for frequently fact-checking Trump but ignoring false statements from Harris.
Conservative viewers called out ABC moderators’ question bias as they laid into Trump and his reversal on abortion access but failed to follow up with Harris when she dodged a question on her frequent policy flip-flops.
“This moderation is pretty bad. I wonder the average voter comes away thinking ‘I guess Kamala doesn’t say false stuff’ or ‘I wonder why ABC checks only one side.’”
The bias in #Debate2024 is insane. Everything ABC has asked has an angle to attack Trump in the question. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was the one in office the last 3.5 yrs instead of Kamala. They’ve let her lie and they refuse to confront her record of failure.
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) September 11, 2024
True but it doesn’t matter. ABC is so thoroughly in the tank for Harris that Trump is going to benefit from that extraordinary anti-Trump bias. https://t.co/TsgC0I1TSP
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 11, 2024
Ahead of the ABC News debate, the New York Times detailed Harris’ relationship with top Disney executive, Dana Walden. Disney is the parent company of ABC. Walden and Harris met in 1994 and their husbands have been friends since the 1980s, the outlet reported, noting that the vice president has joked that she met Doug Emhoff through Walden.
Walden and her husband have donated to Harris’s campaigns since 2003, according to the New York Times. ABC responded to the NYT article, claiming that Walden would not influence the debate and only oversees the news division for budgets and staff size. The Disney executive last hosted a fund-raiser for Harris when she started overseeing ABC News in June of 2022.
After being fired from CBS News in February, award-winning investigative journalist Catherine Herridge told Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson there “was tension” at the network when she “sort of turned [her] lens” on Biden and his son, Hunter.
“I’ve always tried to be respectful of my former employers. And I testified to Congress that, I mean, there was tension over the Biden reporting. Especially when I sort of turned my lens on to President Biden,” Herridge told Carlson in July.