60 Minutes Staff in Uproar After CBS Kills Trump Deportations Segment |
It’s already happening: CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss just killed a story on 60 Minutes that would have humiliated President Donald Trump.
In a leaked email Sunday evening, CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi notified her colleagues that Weiss had “spiked” a forthcoming story about CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration previously deported immigrants the government claimed were gang members.
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct,” Alfonsi wrote. “In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Alfonsi said that she and a colleague had not been afforded the courtesy of an explanation for why the story had been killed.
CNN reported that Weiss had raised concerns about the story on Saturday after Alfonsi was unable to get any Trump administration sources. She’d reportedly furnished the reporters with White House chief of staff Stephen Miller’s phone number.
In her memo, Alfonsi explained that she’d reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the White House, but heard nothing back. She argued that the government’s unwillingness to comment shouldn’t have killed the story.
“If the standard for airing a story becomes ‘the government must agree to be interviewed,’ then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast,” she wrote. “We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer of the state.”
“The public will correctly identify this as censorship,” Alfonsi added.
In a statement to The New York Times, Weiss said: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. 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.”
Since Weiss began her tenure as editor-in-chief of CBS News, she has revealed a rather boring vision for her network’s coverage: bringing Americans to the center. So far, it seems that just involves sucking up to glorified right-wing pundits she hopes will stop by for interviews. This latest move highlights Weiss’s desperation to stay on the Trump administration’s good side—a dangerous place for any serious news organization to be.
Here was the trailer for the cancelled segment:
BREAKING: CBS just pulled this episode of 60 Minutes claiming it is “postponed” Here is the trailer that was pulled for the now “postponed” segment.
Make sure everyone sees it.
It’s remarkable how much harm Pro-Trump Bari Weiss has managed to inflict on CBS News in such a… pic.twitter.com/gccW338rFF
Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie are attempting to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt and fine her for every day she doesn’t release the full Epstein files.
The representatives’ bipartisan bill requiring the Justice Department to release the files passed through Congress, leading to the release of hundreds of thousands of heavily redacted images and documents on Friday. But the DOJ didn’t release all of the files by the deadline. Khanna is worried about the DOJ’s “selective concealment” of documents that may implicate President Trump, who was a good friend of Jeffrey Epstein. The DOJ has already been criticized for redacting many names from the files, including Trump’s, a move totally devoid of transparency.
“The quickest way, and I think most expeditious way, to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi,” Massie told CBS’s Face the Nation. “Ro Khanna and I are talking about and drafting that right now.
“Our goal is not to take down Bondi,” Khanna told The Washington Post. “Our goal is to get the documents out for the survivors. Our goal is to take down the rich and powerful men who went to rape island and covered up the abuse.”
It is unclear whether Massie and Khanna’s effort to hold Bondi in contempt will be fruitful, as the Justice Department and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche have already rejected the notion.
What is clear is that both parties are tired of the dawdling, the dishonesty, and the redactions.
“The administration has struggled for months and months with something that they initially ginned up, and then sort of tried to tamp down,” Republican Senator Rand Paul told ABC on Sunday. “So any evidence or any kind of indication that there’s not a full reveal on this, this will just plague them for months and months more. So my suggestion would be: Give up all the information.”
Newly released transcripts of Ghislaine Maxwell’s July interview with the Justice Department depict a surprisingly chilly relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, despite varied reports that the glitterati socialites were each other’s closest friends.
In transcripts made available Friday by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Maxwell noted that Trump was “always very cordial and very kind” to her, and that she admired his “extraordinary achievement in becoming the president.”
“So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him,” Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, according to the transcript.
Trump was photographed with Maxwell several times over his long friendship with Epstein: She and Trump partied together, attended fashion shows together, and went “out on the town” together, according to a 1997........