In December, CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss shelved a “60 Minutes” story about the Trump administration deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison. The reason, Weiss told staff: The segment didn’t have an on-camera interview with a Trump administration official.
On Sunday evening — four weeks later — the story aired with minimal changes and without an on-camera interview with a Trump administration official.
The segment included a new introduction that said: “Since November, ‘60 Minutes’ has made several attempts to interview key Trump administration officials on camera about our story. They declined our requests.”
At the end of the 16½-minute report, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi narrated a new 2½-minute coda that included the U.S. government’s denial of requests for records regarding the Venezuelan deportees imprisoned at CECOT, a written response from the Department of Homeland Security and an update from a federal judge’s recent ruling, among other notes and disclosures.
Weiss’s decision to abruptly pull the segment last month after the network had approved and promoted it prompted accusations of censorship from within the network, including from Alfonsi, and from outside critics.
In an email to staff reviewed by The Washington Post, Alfonsi described last month’s decision to kill the segment as “corporate censorship.”
“If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” she wrote in the email. “We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.”
In a Dec. 22 meeting, Weiss told staffers that she held the story because she thought it wasn’t ready, according to a person who attended the meeting and spoke on the condition of anonymity to share nonpublic comments.
“This is ‘60 Minutes.’ We need to be able to make every effort to get the principals on the record and on camera,” Weiss said, according to that person. “To me, our viewers come first, not a listing schedule or anything else, and that is my North Star, and I hope it’s the North Star of every person in this newsroom.”
Since Weiss postponed the segment, “60 Minutes” staffers again tried to arrange interviews with administration officials, without success, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
Last week, Weiss personally tried to arrange an interview with an administration official for the segment, the person said. “She claimed she could get it,” the person said. Alfonsi and producers traveled to Washington on Thursday but the interview never materialized, the person said.
CBS News did not respond to a request for comment about any effort by Weiss to secure an interview with an administration official. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“CBS News leadership has always been committed to airing the 60 MINUTES CECOT piece as soon as it was ready,” a CBS News spokeswoman told The Post in a statement. “Tonight, viewers get to see it, along with other important stories, all of which speak to CBS News’ independence and the power of our storytelling.”
Although the segment didn’t air in late December as originally scheduled in the United States, it was briefly available in Canada, and a bootlegged version of the report spread across the internet.
Hundreds of Venezuelans have been deported to El Salvador under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. The “60 Minutes” segment featured interviews with two of them, who described enduring torture and abuse — including sexual assault — during their detention at CECOT. A November report by Human Rights Watch said conditions at the prison breached the United Nations’ minimal rules for the treatment of prisoners.
The Trump administration approved an $8 billion deal for Skydance to buy CBS parent company Paramount in the summer. Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the son of Trump ally and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, arranged for the company to buy Weiss’s conservative opinion website the Free Press for $150 million in October. He then appointed Weiss editor in chief of CBS News.
Weiss’s first months at CBS have featured layoffs, newsroom culture clashes and a notable staff move: tapping Tony Dokoupil to anchor “CBS Evening News.”
Last year, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump alleging that a 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with rival Kamala Harris was deceptively edited and hurt his chance at the presidency.
Tensions have remained between CBS and Trump even with David Ellison owning the network. “Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in December.
Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Dokoupil to air an interview with Trump in full or face a lawsuit, according to an audio recording of the exchange reviewed by The Post. “He said, ‘If it’s not out in full, we’ll sue your ass off,” Leavitt said, relaying a message from the president.
“The moment we booked this interview we made the independent decision to air it unedited and in its entirety,” a CBS spokeswoman wrote in a statement Saturday.
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