New CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil has been mocked over his mannerisms in a new video that critics say was a “staged” attempt to make him appear like an everyday man.
The MAGA-coded host walks through a parking lot in Miami as he speaks into a lapel microphone, carrying a bag over his shoulder as he promotes a newscast that many X commenters felt was inauthentic.
“Don’t hold your bag like that, Tony,” one commenter wrote. “You want us to think of you as normal, start acting like it.”
Another remarked, “The bag casually thrown over your shoulder looks pathetic and staged.”
A third said, “Guy’s trying way too hard.”
Dokoupil’s every move has been scrutinized after he was installed by the new MAGA-curious CBS News boss, Bari Weiss. He received even more heat after he criticized the legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite and promised to tell the stories that millions of Americans crave but the mainstream media has historically “missed.”
It appears that Weiss wants to sell Dokoupil, 45, as a relatable, non-elitist anchor that she feels the legacy media landscape has been missing.
During his weeknight debut on Monday, which briefly went off the rails, the show parroted MAGA talking points, including interviews with Venezuelans who support U.S. control of the country and an expert who said that average gas prices are down a quarter from this time last year.
“On too many stories, the press has missed the story,” Dokoupil said this weekend, promising change at CBS. “Because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.”
Despite this, some of the biggest names in MAGA have rejected Dokoupil.
Right-wing host Megyn Kelly slammed him for not calling out issues with the mainstream media until he got his big break and not during the Biden administration. She said his MAGA pandering was “utter bulls–t condescension.”
“I do believe it will f–king fail, as all these networks are failing because the audience has caught on to their bulls–t,” she added of him being the face of CBS Evening News.
Sean Spicer, President Donald Trump’s first White House press secretary, agreed that Dokoupil was “part of the problem” with the media in years past.
“For him to gaslight the American people and act like somehow he is one of the saviors of the movement is ridiculous,” Spicer said. “If he had sat back and said, ‘I was part of the problem,’ as opposed to, ‘I was you,’ I could at least buy it. But this is so ridiculous.”
CBS News did not respond to a request for comment about criticisms of Dokoupil’s authenticity.
Some have pointed out that Dokoupil’s background mirrors that of many media elites.
The Connecticut-born anchor was educated at the now $53,000-a-year Gulliver Preparatory School in South Florida as a child. He then studied business at George Washington University in the nation’s capital, graduating first in his class, and then attended graduate school at Columbia University.
Dokoupil’s media career began with stints at Newsweek and the Daily Beast before he joined NBC News in 2013 and CBS News in 2016. He married the MS Now correspondent Katy Tur in 2017, and the couple lives together in one of Brooklyn’s most expensive enclaves.
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