Bari Weisstwo months after her post CBS Newseditor-in-chief, was responsible for the appearance of “60 minutesThe excerpt is reportedly about “brutal and torturous conditions” at a prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has deported suspected illegal immigrants for detention.
The CBS News program abruptly announced Sunday — three hours before it was scheduled to air — that it was postponing the segment to a future air date. The report, as previously announced, would interview correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi with deportees who were sent to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration.
Weiss, demanding “numerous changes to the segment,” sharply increased the report on Saturday, the New York Times reported. reported. Among Weiss's suggestions: include an interview with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller or another senior Trump administration official. Weiss, according to the Times, passed on Miller's contact information to the “60 Minutes” team working on the CECOT segment; Alfonsi said she has already sought comment from the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department.
Alfonsi in an email to CBS colleagues on Sunday that was first reported The Wall Street Journal wrote: “Our story has been fact-checked five times and cleared by both CBS lawyers and standards and practice experts. That's factually correct. In my view, withdrawing it now, after all its rigorous internal checks have been completed, is not an editorial decision, but a political decision.”
Alfonsi also wrote: “We've been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are waiting for it. When it doesn't air without a convincing explanation, the public will correctly identify it as corporate censorship. We're trading 50 years of Gold Standard reputation for one week of political silence.”
“60 Minutes” staffers are “threatening to quit over this,” CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter said. tweeted.
CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident comes after President Trump complained two weeks ago about what he said was unfair treatment by “60 Minutes” – and said that since David Ellison and his father, wealthy Trump supporter Larry Ellison, struck a deal to acquire Paramount (parent company of CBS), “60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!”
Last week Trump criticizes Ellisons again on '60 Minutes' wrote on his Truth Social account on Dec. 16, “For those people who think I'm close to the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes treated me far worse after the so-called 'takeover' than ever before. If they're friends, I'd hate to see my enemies!”
In Sunday's announcement, 60 Minutes shared an “editor's note” that said: “The broadcast line for tonight's episode of 60 Minutes has been updated. Our report “Inside CECOT” will air on a future broadcast.” The statement was posted on social networks around 4:30 pm ET on Sunday. The episode was scheduled to air at 7:30 pm ET on the East Coast (or after the conclusion of NFL coverage on CBS).
Asked earlier why the segment was delayed, a CBS News spokesperson said: “The '60 Minutes' report on 'Inside CECOT' will air on a future broadcast. We have determined that additional reporting is needed.”
According to the US-based National Immigration Law Center, in March and April 2025, the US government sent more than 280 young people to CECOT, “a foreign prison notorious for torture, in secret, without the knowledge of their loved ones or lawyers. There they were held incommunicado and subjected to torture.” Four months later, 252 men were released from prison and “returned to their native Venezuela (specifically, a country from which some of the men initially fled for fear of persecution).” according to the organization.
Earlier this month, Trump criticized Leslie Stahl's “60 Minutes” interview, which aired Dec. 7, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a former Trump supporter who has recently criticized the president on a number of issues. The president wrote on Truth Social that the “Trump-hating” Stahl interviewed “a very ill-prepared traitor who, in her confusion, made a lot of really stupid statements.”
Trump continued: “My real problem with the show, however, was not the low IQ of the traitor, but the fact that the new owner of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow such a show to air. THEY ARE NOT BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERS.” Trump also noted that Paramount Global, seeking to finalize its deal with Skydance Media, paid the president $16 million this summer. to settle its lawsuit over an October 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that Trump claimed was fraudulently edited and thus caused him personal harm and constituted interference in the 2024 election.
David Ellison in October announced a $150 million deal to acquire Weiss's counterpart publication, The Free Press. He also appointed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. Industry observers speculated that this was done to improve CBS News' relationship with Trump and the MAGA movement.
Meanwhile, just months after the Skydance-Paramount deal closed, David Ellison's Paramount Skydance filed a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, trying to persuade shareholders to reject WBD's deal with Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. Studios and HBO Max.
Sunday's “60 Minutes” aired a segment instead of reporting on CECOT from correspondent Jon Wertheim, described as follows: Jon Wertheim travels to Nottingham, England, to visit the Kanne-Mason family – seven siblings, each under 30, all famous classical musicians whose talent is music to the ears. Keeping each other in harmony as they take to the world stage, this extraordinary septet, like Wertheim, discovers that the orchestra is greater than the sum of its parts.”
The December 21 episode of 60 Minutes also featured a double segment on Everest Sherpas, for which correspondent Cecilia Vega traveled to Everest Base Camp under the guidance of a 19-year-old Sherpa.
