Bari Weiss withdraws ’60 Minutes’ segment on Trump’s White House CECOT prison
Bari Weiss, two months into her role as editor-in-chief of CBS News, was responsible for adding a “60 Minutes” segment on the “cruel and tortuous conditions” at a prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has deported suspected illegal immigrants for detention, according to reports.
The CBS News program abruptly announced Sunday — three hours before airtime — that it was postponing the segment for a future air date. The report, as previously announced, would feature correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi interviewing deportees the Trump administration sent to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison in El Salvador.
Weiss, after requesting “numerous changes to the segment,” enhanced the report in the New York Times on Saturday reported. One of Weiss’ suggestions is that the piece should include an interview with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller or another senior Trump administration official. According to the Times, Weiss gave Miller’s contact information to the “60 Minutes” team working on the CECOT segment; Alfonsi said she had 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, was the first reported by the Wall Street Journal, wrote: “Our story was shown five times and approved by both CBS lawyers and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my opinion, pulling it now, after all strict internal checks have been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political decision.”
Alfonsi also wrote: “We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers expect it. If it is not broadcast without a credible explanation, the public will rightly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘Gold Standard’ reputation for one week of political silence.”
“60 Minutes” employees are “threatening to quit over this,” according to CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter tweeted.
CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident came after President Trump complained two weeks ago about what he said was unfair treatment by “60 Minutes” — claiming that since David Ellison and his father, wealthy Trump supporter Larry Ellison, closed the deal to acquire Paramount (the parent company of CBS), “60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!”
Last week, Trump criticized the Ellisons again on “60 Minutes,” writing in a Dec. 16 post on his Truth Social account: “For those people who think I have a good relationship with the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called ‘takeover’ than they have ever treated me before. If they are friends, I would hate to see my enemies!”
In an announcement on Sunday, “60 Minutes” shared an “Editor’s Note” that read: “The broadcasts for tonight’s edition of ’60 Minutes’ have been updated. Our ‘Inside CECOT’ report will air in a future broadcast.” The statement read posted on social media around 4:30 PM ET Sunday. The episode was scheduled to air at 7:30 PM ET on the East Coast (or after the end of NFL coverage on CBS).
When previously asked why the segment was postponed, a CBS News spokesperson said, “The ’60 Minutes’ report on ‘Inside CECOT’ will air on a future broadcast. We determined additional reporting was necessary.”
According to the US-based National Immigration Law Center, in March and April 2025, the US government sent more than 280 young men to CECOT, “a foreign prison notorious for torture, in secret, without notice to their loved ones or lawyers. There they were held incommunicado and tortured.” Four months later, 252 of the men were released from prison and “sent to their native Venezuela (specifically a country where some of the men had originally fled for fear of persecution),” according to the organization.
Earlier this month, Trump denounced Lesley Stahl’s “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Dec. 7 with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), the former Trump supporter who has recently been critical of the president on a range of issues. The president wrote on Truth Social that the “Trump-hating” Stahl “interviewed a very ill-prepared traitor, who in her confusion made many truly stupid statements.”
Trump continued, “My real problem with the show, however, was not the low IQ traitor, but that 60 Minutes’ new owner, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD PROPERTY.” Trump also pointed out that Paramount Global, in an effort to finalize its deal with Skydance Media, paid the president $16 million this summer to settle his lawsuit over an October 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, which Trump claimed was deceptively redacted, causing him personal harm and constituting interference in the 2024 election.
David Ellison announced a deal in October worth a reported $150 million to acquire Weiss’s contrarian outlet The Free Press. He also appointed Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News. Industry observers speculated that this was intended to improve CBS News’ standing with Trump and the MAGA movement.
Meanwhile, just a few months after closing the Skydance-Paramount deal, David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, in an effort to convince shareholders to reject WBD’s deal with Netflix, which is acquiring the Warner Bros. studios and HBO Max.
Sunday’s “60 Minutes” aired a segment from correspondent Jon Wertheim in lieu of the report on CECOT, which was described as follows: “Jon Wertheim travels to Nottingham, England, to visit the Kanneh-Mason family – seven siblings, each under thirty, all celebrated classical musicians whose talent is truly music to their ears. Supporting each other in harmony as they take to the world stage, this extraordinary septet is, as Wertheim discovers, an orchestra greater than the sum of the parts.”
The December 21 episode of ’60 Minutes’ also included a double segment on ‘The Sherpas of Everest’, for which correspondent Cecilia Vega traveled to Everest Base Camp accompanied by a 19-year-old Sherpa.
