The leftists inside CBS News clearly despise new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, who threatens to add troublesome balance to their “news.” The war erupted when Weiss delayed the latest 60 Minutes hit piece on Team Trump deporting Venezuelans into a "notorious" Salvadoran prison. Delaying it is a “crisis,” the Trump-haters screamed, a “death knell for democracy.”
Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi assembled what we could guess was a typical hit piece on the “notorious” CECOT prison in El Salvador that temporarily held illegal migrant cause celebre Kilmar Abrego-Garcia. When it was delayed at the last minute, The Wall Street Journal reported a combative note from Alfonsi to fellow 60 Minutes staffers that quickly leaked to the media, where she said her segment was being held for political reasons, not editorial ones. Alfonsi said Weiss had "spiked" the story and not given her a chance to discuss it further.
It is certainly a serious subject when the Trump administration not merely deported illegal immigrants, but deported them directly into a prison. That can certainly be questioned. We can question why it was that Weiss couldn’t delay this story until the promos had already been sent out. Team Alfonsi not only leaked to the papers, but I think we can guess they got their story posted in Canada through Global TV, which has the rights to air 60 Minutes in Canada. so that all their super-fans could see it.
We’ve seen it, and the best we can about it is this: It’s like all the other hatchet jobs that 60 Minutes has launched against Team Trump in 2025. If it had aired, it might not have caused as much of a ripple outside its natural audience. Make no mistake: to use Brian Stelter’s lingo, it "centered" the story on illegal immigrants and their allegations of torture and sexual assault. It was intended to suggest Trump sent innocent men into “Hell,” the term of art CBS used, even though these people aren’t generally religious.
If you think 60 Minutes ever wanted to ponder the Hell endured by Laken Riley, by Rachel Morin, by Jocelyn Nungaray, and other people murdered by illegal aliens, think again. They never want to center the negatives about illegal immigration. The illegal immigrant in general, or in specific like Kilmar, have been centered all year long. They are automatically, let’s joke autocratically awarded Sympathetic Victim Status. The Border Patrol and ICE are perpetually the villains of these stories.
Alfonso and her crew didn't want to put a Trump aide like Stephen Miller into this story. Why? Because they don’t want an energetic rebuttal, where someone might cast aspersions on illegal aliens or worse yet, on CBS for making Fake News. Alfonsi could not abide Weiss wanting a Trump official to comment: "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.... We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state,” Alfonsi wrote.
This statement's hilarious, considering Pelley put aside "investigative powerhouse" to "stenographer" in two puffball interviews with President Biden, not to mention Alfonsi's own puddle of goo over student activists like David Hogg at Parkland High School. If Alfonsi wants to trash Weiss for curtailing her speech, she could review her 60 Minutes piece hailing the Germans for cracking down on free speech on the internet.
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