The crisis at 60 Minutes is not new. The most-watched news program in the United States has been under attack from Donald Trump since the network told the truth about why Trump did not show up to be interviewed during the 2024 election.
Trump launched a bogus defamation lawsuit against 60 Minutes and CBS News. Paramount settled the suit because it wanted approval for its merger with Skydance, which is run by the Trump allies, the Ellisons. After taking over CBS, the Ellisons installed Trump ally Bari Weiss as president of CBS News.
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It was only a matter of time before Weiss did Trump’s bidding and interfered with 60 Minutes, and last, when the program had a segment about Trump deporting immigrants to a brutal El Salvadorian prison, the censorship became real.
Over the weekend, Weiss sparked a crisis inside “60 Minutes” by shelving Sharyn Alfonsi’s report about Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Alfonsi said in an internal memo that “the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.” Weiss, who reports directly to Paramount CEO David Ellison, pushed back by saying the story was “not ready.”
Weiss also said in a statement, “I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”
What Weiss meant by not ready was that the story did not contain an interview from a high-ranking Trump administration official.
Read more below.