MAGA-friendly CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is reportedly personally stalling a new 60 Minutes segment that has the potential to infuriate President Donald Trump.
Last month, Weiss decided to yank a damning report on the deportation of Venezuelan men to the El Salvadoran megaprison known as CECOT. The segment was pulled just hours before it was due to air, with Weiss stating it needed more input from key MAGA figures.
A new report by Status reveals the flagship CBS news program is now reviewing a story on the Trump administration refusing to process refugees from South Africa that star reporter Anderson Cooper has been working on for months.
Status reports that the unaired segment “is all but guaranteed to provoke Trump,” who has repeatedly promoted a debunked right-wing conspiracy theory that a white “genocide” was taking place in South Africa.
Cooper’s piece was reportedly screened in December by 60 Minutes executive producer Tanya Simon, who subsequently requested changes. Weiss, 41, then viewed the segment and had “extensive editorial feedback” according to sources familiar with the matter.
Weiss, who took on her new role in October, has reportedly still not met with all of the 60 Minutes staff. That includes Sharyn Alfonsi, who told her colleagues in an email that Weiss “spiked” the CECOT story, which he was the reporter on.
Alfonsi’s email, which leaked online, said the team had asked Weiss to discuss her eleventh-hour call to pull the segment, but “she did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.”
Status floated the possibility that the CECOT segment, which also leaked online, could finally air on Jan. 18, 2026, however the status of the segment remains “murky.”
The Daily Beast has contacted CBS for comment.
Last month, Axios reported Weiss was planning to overhaul the CBS standards and procedures to give senior editors greater visibility into potentially sensitive stories.
Status reported that Weiss and CBS President Tom Cibrowski now sit in on screenings of upcoming segments.
In April 2025, the news series’ longtime executive producer Bill Owens resigned his position, telling staff in a memo that “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience,” he wrote.
“So, having defended this show—and what we stand for—from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward,” he added.
Weiss has worked as a podcast host and opinion writer for The New York Times, but has limited experience with broadcast TV journalism—especially at a show with the storied history of 60 Minutes.
Weiss installed new CBS Evening News host Tony Dokoupil, reportedly after being unable to lure her first choices of Anderson Cooper or Fox News’ Brett Baier for the role.
However, Dokupil has had a tumultuous first week on air, including Trump-friendly segments and cue card mishaps, with one network insider telling Status his performance had been “a total s–t show.”
Dokoupil, 45, who previously co-hosted CBS’s morning news show, said ahead of his first appearance he planned to rail against “elites” and the “legacy media,” accusing them of botching stories on Hunter Biden’s laptop, Hillary Clinton’s emails, and “the president’s fitness for office.”
On Wednesday, Dokoupil—who is married to MS NOW anchor Katy Tur—aired a puff piece segment where he fawned over Dallas Cowboys owner and noted Trump donor Jerry Jones, who took the anchor on a helicopter tour of Dallas.
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