Bari Weiss Doubles Down After Backlash Over Scrapped 60 Minutes Story

Bari Weiss’s excuse for killing a 60 Minutes story about the Trump administration’s deportations proves just how poorly suited she is to be editor-in-chief of CBS News. 

In a call with CBS staff Monday morning, Weiss offered a flimsy explanation for her decision to hold a segment reporting on the experiences of inmates held at CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration previously deported Venezuelan immigrants the government claimed were gang members.  

Weiss initially claimed the segment was “not ready” because the Trump administration hadn’t deigned to comment, according to internal CBS sources. 

But her statement to staff was different: “We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera,” she said on the call, apparently believing that the testimony of inmates at CECOT wasn’t enough for a story. 

“Our viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or anything else. That’s my north star and I hope it’s yours, too,” she added, according to CNN’s Brian Stelter. 

Her decision makes clear that she cares more about staying on the Trump administration’s good side than actual journalism. 

Ben Goggin, deputy tech editor at NBC News pointed out that Weiss had made a rookie mistake. “Of course, most journalists know that oftentimes people who are the subject of negative reporting don’t want to speak on camera or on the record,” he wrote on Bluesky. 

In a leaked email Sunday evening, CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who’d worked on the story, explained to her colleagues 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.”

We bet you didn’t have this on your 2025 bingo card: Vice President JD Vance just quoted rapper Nicki Minaj defending white people.

Following Minaj’s appearance at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest this weekend, Vance took to X Monday to tout that he’d finally found an actually famous person willing to be publicly associated with MAGA’s hate-fueled brand of conservative politics.

“Nicki Minaj said something at Amfest that was really profound. I’m paraphrasing, but she said, ‘just because I want little black girls to think they’re beautiful doesn’t mean I need to put down little girls with blonde hair and blue eyes,’” Vance wrote in a post on X Monday. “We all got wrapped up over the last few years in zero sum thinking. This was because the people who think they rule the world pit us against one another.”

Minaj’s actual comment was about Black women not replicating the discrimination they’d experienced for their appearances. “We were not being represented and not being admired for our beauty. If we felt like that as Black women, why would we want to do that to other women? Why would we now need to make other people downplay their beauty, so that we can feel—no that’s not how it works. I don’t need someone with blonde hair and blue eyes to downplay their beauty because I know my beauty,” she said.

It’s no surprise that this particular message stuck with Vance. The vice president has repeatedly commented, with no sense of irony whatsoever, on how he doesn’t want to feel sorry for being white anymore.

To be clear, in the United States white households have more than three times the wealth of Black or Hispanic households, and white men have always enjoyed a majority control over the country’s politics. It is the weakest among them—like Vance—who view the empowerment of people who have been systemically disadvantaged as a threat.

Vance readily complains about feeling put down by the attitudes of “people who think they rule the world,” while making racist jokes from his perch as the second most powerful man in the country.

Unfortunately for MAGA, Minaj is far from the perfect spokesperson. While speaking on stage at AmericaFest, the rapper gushed over the vice president, referring to Vance as an “assassin.” This wouldn’t have been notable except that she was speaking to Erika Kirk at the time, whose husband was actually assassinated earlier this year. Yikes.

But other high-profile celebrities haven’t been willing to play ball. Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and SZA have all slammed the White House for using their music in order to dress-up their ghoulish policies for a younger audience.

Kash Patel made the FBI buy a custom fleet of armored BMW X5 for him to ride around in, according to MS NOW. The standard version of the X5 costs about $70,000. 

“It offers protection not just against attacks with blunt instruments and handguns, but also against the world’s most widely used firearm, the AK-47,” the car’s description reads. 

Patel’s FBI spokesperson claimed—without evidence—that this is actually saving the American taxpayer money. 

“Government agencies, including the FBI, routinely evaluate, replace and update vehicle fleets based on usage, security needs or budgetary decisions,” Ben Williamson told MS NOW. “The specific decisions referenced in this article were evaluated partly as a way to save taxpayers millions by picking cheaper selections or making cost structures more efficient.”

This is yet another instance of Patel’s questionable use of taxpayer funds for his own personal benefit. In late October, Patel was caught using a $60 million government jet to visit his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, at a wrestling event at Penn State before using it to fly back to her home in Nashville. He assigned her a personal SWAT team for her “protection.” Patel defended these decisions profusely, calling his girlfriend a “rock-solid conservative and a country music sensation.” He even requested that the FBI buy a new jet—presumably so that he can take Wilkins on more dates. This request was denied given that the cost was estimated to be between $90 million and $115 million. 

There was also the jacket fiasco, in which Patel wouldn’t even get off a plane to investigate the murder of his friend Charlie Kirk until someone got him a special FBI raid jacket—his specific size, and with all the right patches on it. He ended up taking a  jacket from a female agent and patches from various other agents. 

Patel is moving like some kind of celebrity when the two most notable events of his tenure are the failure to quickly find and detain Charlie Kirk’s shooter and the Brown University shooter. Both instances saw Patel’s FBI go days with no leads until independent citizens came forward, leading to bipartisan questioning over Patel’s competence. 

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.”