Trump returns to “60 Minutes” and CBS News — because of Bari Weiss
It only took million new ownership and deep staff cuts for CBS News to lure President Donald Trump back to Minutes A year after he filed a frivolous lawsuit against CBS News and its parent company Paramount over the editing of an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during the poll Trump sat down with the organization s Norah O Donnell for his own edited interview and he was sure to take his success lap You don t have to put this on because I don t wanna embarrass you Trump joked after reminding O Donnell that indeed Minutes paid me a lotta money Coincidentally or not Minutes did not air that portion of Trump s interview The president s interview which aired on Sunday night comes at a moment when CBS News credibility is under strain After initially calling Trump s suit meritless and an affront to the First Amendment Paramount Global s then-controlling shareholder Shari Redstone decided to pay million to Trump s future presidential library to end the litigation Related Bari Weiss at CBS News isn t a win for queer journalists Trump had claimed Harris interview was selectively edited and constituted vote interference which caused him to suffer mental anguish his attorneys claimed As part of the settlement CBS News agreed to release full transcripts of future Minutes presidential interviews On Sunday Minutes aired only minutes of Trump s -minute interview The blatant double standard was apparently too much for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer D-N Y to stomach Maybe I should file a complaint with the FCC against the Trump White House for editing his unhinged Minutes interview he posted on X after the interview aired It will use the exact same language Trump lodged against Vice President Harris The threat of future action from Democrats is unlikely to spook the grid which in recent weeks agreed to only air unedited interviews on its Sunday morning news plan Face the Nation following criticism from Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem s band over an interview This comes after an billion merger of Paramount Global with Skydance Media which is owned by David Ellison the son of tech billionaire and prominent Trump supporter Larry Ellison When it sought approval from the Federal Communications Commission for the merger Skydance committed to hiring an ombudsman to oversee viewer complaints and promptly hired Kenneth R Weinstein who once led a conservative think tank The company then paid million to hire Bari Weiss to helm CBS News As co-founder of the Free Press a prominent reactionary newsletter she routinely published strident pro-Israel coverage specific of which criticized CBS News for its coverage of the Israeli-Gaza conflict and anti-transgender articles and essays Trump not surprisingly is a big fan of Weiss I think you have a great new leader frankly who s the young woman that s leading your whole enterprise is a great the president recounted O Donnell in another portion that was left out of the televised edition Trump not surprisingly is a big fan of Weiss I think you have a great new leader frankly who s the young woman that s leading your whole enterprise is a great the president stated O Donnell in another portion that was left out of the televised edition While O Donnell tried to press Trump on several points he was ultimately able to either deflect with attacks against his political opponents or outright lies When inquired about his controversial modern pardon of Changpeng Zhao whose company helped the Trump family make million the president incredulously claimed he did not know the man Weiss is apparently instituting new strategic mandates On Monday veteran anchor and correspondent John Dickerson who has served as co-anchor of CBS Evening News since January stated he will leave the infrastructure by the end of the year making him the first major on-air talent to resign since Ellison and Weiss took charge Days later the media company revealed wide-ranging staff cuts including laying off CBS Saturday Morning co-anchors Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson closing down the Johannesburg bureau and dismantling the race and way of life crew Trey Sherman a producer on CBS Evening News Plus noted in a TikTok that every producer on my organization who got laid off is a person of color a sentiment echoed by other sacked staffers on social media CBS News foreign correspondent Chris Livesay whom the New York Post identified as pro-Israel reportedly appealed directly to Weiss complaining of his mistreatment in Rome and asking to be reassigned to Israel According to the Independent Weiss relented and instead terminated Debora Patta a -year veteran reporter who was not long ago targeted by U S Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for her editing of a sitdown interview the two had She is reportedly considering filing a lawsuit for her firing Anchor Gayle King whose job is rumored to be on the chopping block forcefully pushed back on Friday What I m not gonna do is negotiate in the media Not doing that Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only written by Amanda Marcotte now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts Weiss a former New York Times opinion writer whose rise to power has been a outcome of her crusade against the so-called wokes reportedly wants to boot longtime Minutes correspondents like Scott Pelley and Bill Whitaker and is looking to poach conservative voices like CNN s Scott Jennings and Fox News Bret Baier and Dana Perino from their respectives perches This pattern aligns with Weiss s broader agenda rebranding mainstream institutions as anti-woke at the expense of diversity equity and inclusion noted Vanuska Sylvester of the Emerging Bias Channel a platform that chronicles discrimination in professional settings Sylvester explained to Salon that Weiss influence at CBS is part of a larger media shift that seeks to silence progressive and Black perspectives while courting conservative approval Since Weiss took over CBS has featured Trump figures Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff for an interview on Minutes about the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza and a discussion with former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice about the apparent end of the war once a deal was brokered Interestingly as the New York Times released In the two weeks that she has worked at the system Ms Weiss has not promoted any articles or reporting from CBS News on her X account which reaches million followers As a Middle East peace deal came into view Ms Weiss shared numerous pro-Israel opinion pieces from The Free Press and an editorial that mentioned Zohran Mamdani the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor had failed the Hamas test We need your help to stay independent Subscribe nowadays to assistance Sophia Tesfaye s commentary So far Weiss is not yet fully convincing the conservative audience she is apparently targeting I remember when Minutes was a news entity before they became a debating society complained actor and MAGA mouthpiece James Woods on X Literally in the first five minutes of this interview with the President of the United States O Donnell interrupted him repeatedly every single time he started to answer I turned it off Trust in the news media is at an all-time low But CBS News according to newest polling is literally one of the largest part trusted news outfits Weiss has claimed she wants to hold both American political parties to equal scrutiny but she seems to have fallen for Trump s narrative about the media Over the subject of years the president has written nearly social media posts that attack the press Veteran Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl who interviewed Trump in during his last appearance on Minutes revealed that after Trump won the Republican presidential nomination in he admitted to her why he attacks the media You know why I do it I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you It s been a decades-long project for Donald Trump As Bill Owens the former Minutes executive producer who resigned in April in recent times reported of his former employer The only thing I could do was professionally blow myself up to create a blast radius around Minutes to get people s attention that this was happening Read more about this topic How Donald Trump broke the American mind How the left can win on cable news From Dan Rather to Bari Weiss How far CBS News has fallen The post Trump returns to Minutes and CBS News because of Bari Weiss appeared first on Salon com
