CBS Boss Bari Weiss “Personally” Led Twisted 9/11 Article on El-Sayed

CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss was reportedly responsible for a blatantly racist news headline that tied Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to the 9/11 terrorist attack.

The CBS article was headlined: “Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks.”

The story’s lede was even more offensive, grammatically suggesting that El-Sayed was somehow to blame for 9/11.

“As the nation prepares to mark 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack,” the story began.

That same language was mirrored in an X post from the company’s official account.

The story critiqued several of El-Sayed’s since-deleted Covid-era tweets in which the former public health official compared the pandemic’s early death toll to the infamous terrorist attack and wrote that he hoped the ensuing government response would “spend the next ten years fighting a war for public health & against poverty.” (This was not controversial—many leaders and media outlets at the time compared Covid’s death toll to that of September 11.)

Ultimately, CBS News used the anniversary of 9/11 to damage the Muslim progressive’s chances in Michigan, even though the content of his posts was rather banal.

The Weiss-led network also suggested there was something sinister about the fact that El-Sayed had deleted the posts, even though his campaign has been public about the fact that he had deleted all his posts prior to 2023.

Status’s Oliver Darcy reported Tuesday that Weiss “personally directed” the Islamophobic language and was a driving force in shaping the story’s framing. According to Status, Weiss “praised” the story during CBS News’s daily editorial meeting, and signaled her support of the piece “to the entire network.” She also urged that the “headline be tweaked to specifically mention that El-Sayed had deleted tweets referencing the September 11 terrorist attacks,” according to CBS staffers who spoke with Status.

Senior CBS News staff brought the story to the standards department, though little was done about it due to Weiss’s personal involvement.

“They took a small nugget of news, forced into something much larger, and messed up,” one CBS News employee told Status.

A former senior CBS News staffer who heard about the situation from a former colleague told Status that the article was “shameful” and “the racism is overt.”

Weiss, the founder of the pro-Israel blog The Free Press and a former New York Times opinion columnist, was tapped to run CBS News late last year, despite the fact that she had never worked in broadcast news, lacked traditional reporting experience, and had also never run a major news operation.

Weiss’s business decisions atop the news giant have unequivocally and singlehandedly divorced CBS News from its decades-long place in America’s prestige news media circuit. What was once crowned the “gold standard” of broadcasting and was the home of some of journalism’s most venerable names, such as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, has since devolved into a graveyard for journalistic ethics.

Under Weiss’s stewardship, CBS News has killed critical stories in order to save face for the Trump administration. The network has also lost a cadre of veteran journalists, ranging from 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens to Anderson Cooper, to the company’s de facto face, Scott Pelley.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll—one of the highest-ranking officials in the Defense Department—warned President Trump that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s mass purge of military leadership could have a negative impact on the Army’s “transformation and readiness,” according to The Atlantic. Then he resigned.

During their meeting, Trump was reportedly shocked when Driscoll told him just how many officials had been fired, stepped down, or not selected for promotion under Hegseth—something you’d think the president would already know about. Now, in the midst of a flailing war with Iran, the military is without its highest-ranking civilian leader, two Senate-confirmed head generals, and a confirmed commander.

Driscoll and Hegseth have seemingly been at odds from the moment Trump appointed Hegseth to head the Pentagon. In April, The Hill reported that Hegseth saw Driscoll as a threat to his leadership given Driscoll’s connection to Vice President JD Vance and his more traditional, less aggressive leadership style—with Hegseth’s team going so far as to try to frame Driscoll as a “resistance figure” in an effort to oust him from the administration.

Hegseth had already eviscerated Driscoll’s support network, firing his chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, and two other high-ranking military officials in April. Driscoll’s Monday resignation was a long time coming, if nothing else. It’s unclear what exactly Hegseth’s problem with Driscoll was beyond paranoia and Driscoll’s lack of total capitulation.

“From what I’ve seen in the press, and from whatever it’s worth, what I hear from people in the Army, it’s not like Driscoll is scheming and plotting to make Hegseth look bad. I mean, Hegseth takes care of that himself on a regular basis. It’s just, it’s all just very strange. And it’s just irresponsible,” retired Army reserve colonel and Pentagon staffer Kevin Carroll told The Hill in April.

Either way, Driscoll is gone now, and Hegseth will have one less detractor to his vision of a reckless, hypermasculine, shoot-first-ask-questions-later military to reign supreme over.

A U.S. Postal Service official has accused the agency of defying court orders as it rushes to implement the Trump administration’s mail-in voting restrictions.

The allegations were made public Tuesday morning by way of a letter from Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal to Postmaster General David Steiner. Citing the insider’s testimony, Blumenthal said that the “risky and haphazard” implementation of President Donald Trump’s March executive order—which granted the postal service new gatekeeping responsibilities regarding mail-in ballots—could lead to a “catastrophic failure” in U.S. voting procedures come November.

The executive order was in legal limbo for months—up until last week, when the Supreme Court decided that the lawsuit challenging the order was premature since the administration had not yet implemented it. The Supreme Court was clear that it had not ruled on the legality of Trump’s order, but nonetheless allowed it to move forward.

Still, the postal service’s plan to carry out the marching orders is already fraught with problems, according to the whistleblower report.

The snail-mail carrier has been building an entirely new federal ballot mail portal since June, months before the service was permitted to move forward with the executive order. The portal will screen all incoming ballots, but its development has been “rushed” and “risky” as the service tried to meet “impossible deadlines.”

For instance, the agency has eliminated testing procedures for the portal platform, a risk that could potentially “derail the midterm elections,” according to the whistleblower.

“Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all,” the official said.

Blumenthal told reporters by phone on Monday that “the main takeaway for me is that the Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans. One-third of all Americans cast their ballots by mail, and the USPS puts all of their votes at risk.”

Voting by mail will invariably become more difficult for the tens of millions of Americans who depend on the service under Trump’s new order. Even if a voter does everything right, their vote could still be rejected by the Postal Service’s new portal.

Part of the problem is the system’s 0 percent failure rate, which processes ballots in large batches but rejects the lot if one fails to pass muster.

“For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to USPS and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the portal—because, for example, someone has recently changed their name after marriage or they’ve moved—then USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,999 ballots as well,” Blumenthal wrote. USPS would then expect the state to “take back the entire batch to cure the issue with the single ballot,” according to the whistleblower.

The whistleblower claimed that developing such a portal and the infrastructure to support it should take the service a year or more, but USPS leadership nonetheless demanded that the electronic processor be launched by September 1—less than six months after the executive order was signed, and just two months before the midterm election cycle.

For Americans, it’s been a real tough summer for figuring out what foods are safe to eat.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced 26 notices for food products this August alone (not including pet food). Including drugs, that total increased to 46 recalls. That’s a notable increase from August 2025 when just 26 products were recalled, including 18 food products, and from August 2024 when 24 products were recalled, including 19 food products.

A lot of it was due to salmonella. In the past month, the FDA issued 12 different product recalls for potential salmonella contamination—a six-times increase from the month before. In July, the FDA recalled only two products for potential salmonella contamination. In August 2025 and August 2024, only one product was recalled for potential salmonella contamination.

The latest products recalled due to salmonella concerns include radishes, mangoes, alfalfa spouts, granola, and jalapeños and the many, many premade dishes that include them as ingredients. A number of food products were recalled this month for other concerning reasons, including glass in fruit popsicles; metal in sourdough; and, most recently, ink in tofu.

Salmonella’s just the tip of the iceberg—lettuce, that is. American consumers are still reeling from the past few months’ deadly cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce sourced from Taylor Farms facilities and recalls of frozen blueberries for potential E. coli contamination.

Obviously, there has been a sharp increase in the number of recalls. It’s not immediately clear whether this can be attributed to increased enforcement or more hazardous food—but the rapidly rising rate of recalls makes you wonder: Is this what making America healthy again looks like?

Here’s a complete list of (human) food recalls in the month of August 2026:

• Hodo Chilli Crisp Lightly Fried Tofu for potential ink contamination (the recall was initiated on August 7 but not widely reported until August 31)
• Kofinas Garlic Mediterranean Infused Extra Virgin Olive Oil for containing essential oil not approved for culinary use (August 31)
• Little Temptations Chocolatey Eyeballs for containing undeclared milk (August 31)
• Everything Sprouts Robust Radish Mix for potential contamination of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli or salmonella (August 29)
• Martina mangoes for salmonella (August 29)
• Jaime’s Spanish Village Jalapeño Ranch Dressing for containing undeclared eggs (August 26)
• Momchipz’s Veggie Chips Broccoli Florets & Cauliflower for containing undeclared wheat (August 24)
• Donutful Chocolate Dipped Vanilla Cake Donuts for containing undeclared milk (August 24)
• Everything Sprouts, Calco alfalfa sprouts for potential contamination of salmonella or Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (August 22)
• A variety of breads produced by Prince for undeclared milk and sesame (August 19)
• Potato sourdough bread from Grand Central Bakery for potentially containing pieces of metal (August 19)
• Fruit popsicles from Outshine for possible glass contamination (August 18)
• Apulian Almond & Cocoa Spread from Prolon for undeclared cashews, pistachios and/or hazelnuts (August 17)
• Jalapeños from Dairyland Produce LLC for potential salmonella contamination (August 17)
• Salad dressing from Salata for potential salmonella contamination (August 14)
• A variety of premade vegetable products from NatureBest, including pico de gallo, stuffed mushrooms, and soup mix containing jalapeño for potential salmonella contamination (August 14)
• Granola from the Hampton Grocer for potential salmonella contamination (August 14)
• Tomato Bisque Soup Kit from Marketside for potential listeria monocytogenes contamination (August 13)
• Vitasia Chinese Style Asian Style Wok Spice Mix for potential salmonella contamination (August 12)
• Frankie’s Organic Vegan Cheddar Puffs for undeclared milk (August 12)
• A variety of premade food products from Whole Foods Market containing jalapeño for potential salmonella contamination (August 12)
• A variety of premade food products from Trader Joe’s containing jalapeño for potential salmonella contamination (August 9)
• Green powder products from Food to Live for possible salmonella contamination (August 7)
• Sura Tanmen Hot and Sour Flavor Premium Japanese Noodles & Soup Base for undeclared fish (August 6)
• Vegan Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert Coconut Fudge Sandwiches from Blank Slate Creamery for undeclared egg allergen
• Pistachio nut butter from BetterGoods for possible salmonella contamination
• Ukrops Homestyle Foods Baked Spaghetti and Bread Pudding products for potential presence of aluminum slivers

A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Trump to continue construction on his White House ballroom.

In a 5–4 decision that broke somewhat along traditional ideological lines, the court granted an emergency request filed by the Trump administration to proceed with construction on the president’s controversial plans for a White House ballroom. Justice John Roberts joined all three of the court’s liberal justices in dissenting.

“Construction of the ballroom has proceeded apace for the better part of a year,” Roberts wrote on behalf of the four dissenting justices. “That construction is likely unlawful. Pursuant to its plenary constitutional authority over the District of Columbia and federal property, Congress has explicitly prohibited the construction of any ‘building or structure … on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.’ … The ballroom is a building or structure being erected on federal park grounds—President’s Park—in the District of Columbia. Yet Congress has not passed any law resembling ‘express authority’ for the Executive’s construction of it.”

The conservative majority, in an unsigned decision, rejected the challenge from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which was seeking to halt construction of the ballroom indefinitely. The five justices did not rule on whether construction of the ballroom was in fact legal, but determined that the National Trust lacked the legal right to challenge the project.

“This Court has not found standing in circumstances like these before,” the court’s opinion read. “To the contrary, we have repeatedly held that mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify.”

While the court didn’t rule on the legality of the ballroom’s construction, the decision is still a major win for Trump—and an infringement on the powers of Congress.

“The White House is not just any building,” Roberts noted in the dissent. “In failing to appreciate as much, the court misconceives the plaintiff’s injury, allowing the executive’s likely infringement of the legislature’s power of the purse and authority to regulate federal property in the District of Columbia to continue.”

Trump has tried to push forward his 90,000-square-foot ballroom by arguing that it will provide a secure underground facility in case of a national emergency, but a recent report revealed that a bunker already exists under the White House to protect the president and his team if necessary. Meanwhile, the skyrocketing costs of the ballroom keep escalating. What Trump originally claimed would be a $200 million project funded by donors has now turned into a $600 million boondoggle, with taxpayers on the hook for half that amount.

This story has been updated.