60 Minutes Staff in Uproar After CBS Kills Story on Trump Deportations

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:

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 postcard.

When asked about Trump’s relationship with the notorious child sex trafficker, Maxwell was equally reserved.

“I don’t know how they met, and I don’t know how they became friends,” Maxwell said. “I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together, but they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly.”

She went on to claim that she had only ever seen the socialites together in public, and never in private—despite flight logs indicating that Trump flew aboard Epstein’s private jet several times and an email from Epstein’s estate in which he said Trump was “with” him on Thanksgiving 2017.

“I think they were friendly like people are in social settings. I don’t—I don’t think they were close friends or I certainly never witnessed the President in any of—I don’t recall ever seeing him in his house, for instance,” Maxwell said.

“I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting,” she continued, casually referring to a grooming tactic she and Epstein would employ to bypass nonconsensual sexual contact. The larger Epstein files release Friday included a note detailing some 254 masseuses in Epstein’s contact files.

“I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

That would be very surprising, considering that Epstein and Trump allegedly enjoyed being sexually inappropriate in public together, reportedly bonding over “trophy hunting” women. Further still, Trump has openly boasted about his sexual entitlement, claiming that he likes to “grab” women “by the pussy.”

Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in jail for playing an active role in Epstein’s crimes, identifying and grooming vulnerable young women while normalizing their abuse at the hands of her millionaire boyfriend. Maxwell’s attorneys have pressed the White House for a pardon for several months now, and the British ex-socialite signaled in a court filing earlier this month that she would ask a court to free her from her captivity.

Whether the DOJ interview was intended as a quid pro quo is still unclear, but shortly after the information exchange, Maxwell—one of the worst sex criminals of the century—received an extremely cushy transfer, shipping her from a Florida prison to a low-security prison camp in Texas that lawmakers have described as “not suitable for a sex offender.”

Of course, in the same testimony, the famed manipulator also vehemently denied that “anything inappropriate happened” while she was with Epstein.

“I never saw a tear,” Maxwell told Blanche.

Trump has not been charged with any crimes related to Epstein or Maxwell.

Surprise, surprise: President Donald Trump was in Jeffrey Epstein’s contact list.

Buried in the massive trove of documents released by the Department of Justice Friday was Epstein’s 90-page contact book filled with names of high-profile celebrities—including Donald Trump and his family members.

Contact information for “Trump, Donald,” now redacted, was kept separately from the information on how to reach Trump’s daughter Ivanka, his ex-wife Ivana, his brother Robert, and Robert’s wife, Blaine.

A handwritten note indicated the contact book was from Palm Beach, dated 2004–2005.

There also appeared to be contact information for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where Epstein reportedly scouted young women to abuse and traffic, and from where he was supposedly banned in October 2007.

In an extensive list of hotels, there seem to be no listings between the Four Seasons Restaurant and Myers of Westwick—a sizable chunk of the alphabet that possibly could indicate a missing page.

Trump reportedly recounted his sexual conquests to Epstein over the phone, while the alleged sex trafficker invited others to listenin.

Republican Representative and MAGA hard-liner Elise Stefanik announced Friday that she will be dropping out of the New York gubernatorial race. While the move is surprising given that Stefanik was once one of the GOP’s rising stars, it comes after a series of snubs from President Trump. 

“While spending precious time with my family this Christmas season, I have made the decision to suspend my campaign for Governor and will not seek re-election to Congress. I did not come to this decision lightly for our family,” she wrote Friday on X. “I am truly humbled and grateful for the historic and overwhelming support from Republicans, Conservatives, Independents, and Democrats all across the state for our campaign to Save New York.”   

While Stefanik noted that she could have “overwhelmingly” won her primary, she mused that the political timing was not right for a run—and that she wanted to focus on raising her young son. 

“I am incredibly grateful to the people of New York’s 21st District for entrusting me to represent you in the United States Congress. Thank you to my dedicated staff over the past decade. I am proud of the significant results that we successfully delivered for the hardworking families in our district and across America. It has been a tremendous professional honor to serve as your Congresswoman over the past eleven years,” she continued.

Trump had notably declined to endorse Stefanik in the race, despite her being an absolute loyalist to him since 2016. When fellow Republican Bruce Blakeman, whom Trump had previously endorsed in his race for county executive, entered the race, Stefanik’s Trump endorsement went out the window. (Trump still has not endorsed someone in the race.)

“Thank you for your support and encouragement as my family and I look forward to the next meaningful personal and professional chapter,” Stefanik concluded

“LMAO. Imagine if Stefanik hadn’t code switched from a relatable ‘Every Mom’ moderate to frothing MAGA shitposter ... she might’ve become a real stateswoman,” Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manríquez wrote. “I guess we’ll never know.”

This story has been updated. 

The Department of Justice finally released its first trove of files on Jeffrey Epstein Friday afternoon—with a broken search tool.

The files have been divided into court records, DOJ disclosures, Freedom of Information Act, and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Disclosures. There is also a search bar that includes a disclaimer: “Due to technical limitations and the format of certain materials (e.g., handwritten text), portions of these documents may not be electronically searchable or may produce unreliable search results.”

The government was legally required to release all the files Friday, but took their time, and ultimately only released a partial batch. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche pledged to release more files in the coming weeks in an interview on Fox News Friday morning.

Many of the released files are redacted nearly in full.

In a statement after the files’ release, the White House absurdly claimed, “The Trump Administration is the most transparent in history.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson continued:

By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, the Trump Administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have. And while President Trump is delivering on his promises, Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Stacey Paskett have yet to explain why they were soliciting money and meeting from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender. The American people deserve answers.

That statement ignores the fact that Republicans in Congress, led by House Speaker MIke Johnson, delayed and stalled on releasing the files for months. Johnson used a government shutdown to delay the swearing-in of Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva, who was the decisive vote in a discharge petition to force the files’ release. Every Democrat signed the petition, but only four Republicans did: Representatives Thomas Massie, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Nancy Mace.

Trump still refuses to acknowledge his close relationship with Epstein, and flip-flopped on the files only after he realized popular (and Republican) opinion was strongly in favor of the government making them public. Friday’s release is the first peek into what the Trump administration is willing to tell the public about what the government knows about Epstein, and a lot of it was information people already knew. Legally, though, they should be releasing everything that doesn’t endanger victims.

This story has been updated.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he’s proud of shuttering the U.S. Agency of International Development—but he really shouldn’t be.

During a press conference Friday, Rubio was asked whether he stood by his false claim earlier this year that the Trump administration’s massive cuts to the USAID haven’t killed anyone. Rather than fess up, he doubled down on his deadly decision.

“I’m very proud of the changes we’ve made on foreign aid,” Rubio said. The secretary claimed that the United States would enter into more than 50 “health compacts” with foreign countries by the end of 2025, in order to cut out the middleman nongovernmental organizations that took a share of the assistance.

Under these health compacts, foreign countries would not only receive assistance but would be “provided a plan to build up their own self-sustainment,” Rubio said.

The State Department has only recently begun to roll out its health compacts with foreign countries, deals that represent a major reduction in U.S. health spending in each of these nations. So far, only eight health compacts have been announced, all with the governments of sub-Saharan countries: Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Uganda, Mozambique, Eswatini, Rwanda, and Liberia.

How the secretary plans to seal the deal on 42 more deals by December 31 is unclear.

But Rubio’s sweeping cuts have already taken a devastating toll on communities across the world. By November 2025, funding cuts to USAID assistance aimed at combating infectious diseases had already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children, according to Atul Gawande, a former assistant administrator for global health at USAID during the Biden administration.

The Center for Global Development calculated that the number of lives potentially lost from cutting current spending could be anywhere from 500,000 to one million. Cuts to future spending could potentially lead to between 670,000 and 1.6 million lives lost.

Representative Sarah McBride—the first out transgender member of Congress—had to lobby Republicans to strike down an anti-trans bill because she knew her Democratic colleagues would abandon her.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted 216–211 to pass MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s legislation to criminalize gender-affirming care like puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgical care for patients under 18, subjecting medical providers to up to 10 years in prison. The legislation would also give parents criminal liability. Three Democrats—Texas Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, along with North Carolina Representative Don Davis—were expected to vote with Republicans on the bill (and did). So McBride reached out to her right.

“We’re most interested in the caucus, right?” Democratic Representative Becca Balint, co-chair of the Equality Caucus, told NOTUS. “But we also suspected we might lose some Democrats, which is why Sarah was like, ‘Look, I’ll pick up votes wherever I can.’ She will talk to anyone.”

Republican Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler, Mike Kennedy, and Gabe Evans all voted with McBride and the rest of the Democratic Party against the bill.

While McBride did not detail her discussions with these representatives, this surprising moment of bipartisanship displays the rifts and inconsistencies within both parties on the issues of transgender rights and particularly gender-affirming care.

The president genuinely could not wait to plaster his name on the Kennedy Center.

The newly renamed Trump-Kennedy Center received some new signage Friday, hours after the national cultural center’s board voted to add “Donald Trump” to the institute’s title.

Workers were spotted hanging the large metal letters Friday morning, spelling out the Kennedy Center’s new name: “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office Thursday, Trump said he was “surprised” to hear that the board—which he handpicked and personally appointed earlier this year—had approved the name change.

“This was brought up by one of the very distinguished board members, and they voted on it, and there’s a lot of board members, and they voted unanimously. So I was very honored by it,” Trump said.

But he couldn’t have been too surprised: Trump pitched the idea himself, publicly, in August, writing on Truth Social that there were “GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER.”

But questions still abound as to the legality of the center’s sudden name change, as the original name was enshrined in law by the presidential administrations that oversaw the project’s construction and development.

“It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says,” said former Representative Joseph Kennedy III, the grandnephew of the deceased president.

Legal experts who spoke with NBC News earlier this year argued that, in order to change the name, Congress would need to pass a new law—none of which happened before Trump slapped his name on the side of the iconic institution.

A coalition of Democratic lawmakers serving as ex-officio members of the Kennedy Center board pledged to hold the White House accountable.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, however, was not so clear on the law, informing reporters Thursday that he would “look at” whether the name change legitimately required legislation.

“I’m not familiar with the process of how this is done,” Thune said. “There’s a question of whether or not it’s in law. Is it statutory? Do we have to change the law to do these sorts of things? And I’m sure we’ll get all the answers to that in due time.”

While Trump’s attention has been fixated on vanity projects, he’s dragged his feet on real problems that are genuinely plaguing the country: Unemployment has reached the highest levels since the pandemic, the agriculture industry is on the fritz thanks to Trump’s inconsistent tariff policies, and the cost of goods has continued to skyrocket.

An AP-NORC poll conducted earlier this month found that roughly half of polled Americans have cut back on nonessentials or big purchases in order to afford their needs.

Top Democrats in Congress are threatening to sue after the Justice Department announced that it would not meet the Friday deadline to release all Epstein files.

Representatives Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, the ranking members of the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees, respectively, said in a statement, “We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law.”

“The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ,” their statement read.

The government is required to release the files in full Friday, but Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News in the morning that there would only be a partial release, with more coming in the following weeks.

“So today is the 30 days, when I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today. And those documents will come in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into Mr. Epstein,” Blanche said, adding, “So I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks. So today several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more.

“The most important thing that the attorney general has talked about, that [FBI] Director [Kash] Patel has talked about, is that we protect victims. So what we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story—to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected,” Blanche continued.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that “there will be serious legal and political consequences” to the DOJ’s decision. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said, “Anything short of a full release today is a violation of the law and a continuation of this administration’s coverup on behalf of a bunch of pedophiles and sex traffickers.”

It’s not surprising that the Trump administration would drag its feet on the release, considering that what has already been made public has been so damaging to President Trump. But the government has supposedly spent more than $1 million supposedly redacting national security and victim-related information from the files over the last several months, undercutting the excuses officials are making.