Former “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley accused CBS News chief Bari Weiss of tilting coverage in favor of how President Donald Trump characterized events in Minnesota and described a newsroom in turmoil under her leadership during an emotional New York Times interview published Sunday.
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In his first interview since being fired last week, Pelley alleged Weiss attempted to influence a politically sensitive “60 Minutes” report on immigration protests in Minneapolis and said her intervention amounted to editorial interference he had never before experienced at CBS News.
“There was a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News,” Pelley told The New York Times.
Pelley said the dispute centered on a “60 Minutes” segment about the confrontation between protesters and federal agents during immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, including the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
According to Pelley’s account, Weiss sent notes on the segment after it had already been approved for broadcast. He said one request was to portray protesters as more violent and another involved the description of the circumstances around Good’s death.
“Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me,” Pelley said. “And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.”
Pelley said he and his producer had already “gone out of our way” to include footage showing protesters behaving violently, including confrontations with law enforcement. He said they also reviewed video of the shooting involving Good and concluded it did not support the characterization Weiss wanted to include in the piece.
According to Pelley, no changes were made based on Weiss’ notes.
CBS News rejected Pelley’s account in a statement to The New York Times and NBC News, saying that Weiss made “four points in the course of editorial back-and-forth.”
“They had no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible,” the statement said. “As is frequently the case in any newsroom that operates with collaboration, not everything she raised made it into the final piece.”
Pelley’s allegations were part of his broader criticism of CBS News leadership following the sale of Paramount, CBS’ parent company, to Skydance Media and the appointment of Weiss as the network’s editor-in-chief.
Pelley was fired Tuesday after a heated meeting with newly hired “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton, whom he said lacked experience in television news.
Pelley told the Times that tension had been mounting for weeks following mass firings and leadership changes at “60 Minutes,” including the dismissal of executive producer Tanya Simon.
Pelley said he confronted Bilton during a staff meeting where the new boss had introduced himself to employees and read from prepared remarks. Prior to the meeting, Bilton sent an email to staff that Pelley described as “insulting” and introduced plans for a new crop of “60 Minutes” correspondents.
“And when I saw that, I thought, ‘They’re going to fire all of us, eventually,’” Pelley said. “So that’s why I use these admittedly, for a journalist, hyperbolic terms.”
Pelley described growing concerns at CBS News after Paramount agreed to settle Trump’s lawsuit against the network in July 2025, a decision announced just weeks before federal regulators approved the company’s acquisition by David Ellison’s Skydance Media. Pelley called the settlement a “bribe” intended to help secure approval of the deal, an allegation that Paramount has denied.
The former CBS News journalist alleged that Simon’s firing may have been linked to tensions involving Anderson Cooper’s departure from “60 Minutes” at the end of his contract. Cooper, whose contract was not renewed, ended his final appearance by saying he hoped “60 Minutes” would remain true to itself.
Simon was “blindsided” by her termination, according to Pelley, who tearfully described her as having grown up with CBS News since her father, Bob Simon, worked at the network.
“My understanding from people directly involved in that interaction is that Bari Weiss was quite livid that Anderson Cooper was allowed to say those things and that she, Bari, was not consulted beforehand, which in our normal course of business would not have been done anyway,” Pelley said. “I believe that was part of the reason Tanya was let go.”
A spokesperson from CBS News did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on Pelley’s description of Simon’s termination and his assertion that Weiss should be removed from her position at CBS News.
Pelley, who spent 37 years at CBS News as a White House correspondent, “CBS Evening News” anchor and “60 Minutes” correspondent, described the network’s leadership as lacking experience. He believes the network can recover but warned trust inside the newsroom as eroded.
“They don’t know what they’re doing,” Pelley said. “And there’s a subtle political bias that I’ve never seen at ‘60 Minutes’ before, or at CBS News before. So that is my hope: a return to sanity. We can save this. It’s possible to land this plane. But right now, CBS News is on fire.”
