Jimmy Kimmel Defends Scott Pelley and Denounces CBS as ‘Trump Suck-Ups’
Jimmy Kimmel is standing up for Scott Pelley after the longtime journalist was fired from “60 Minutes.”
Pelley was removed from the newsmagazine program after accusing newly appointed CBS News boss Bari Weiss of “killing” the show and saying that new executive producer Nick Bilton has “poor qualifications for this job.”
“Last night, the Trump shits at CBS fired a great and deeply respected journalist, Scott Pelley, from his job at ’60 Minutes,’” Kimmel said during his speech. Monologue on Wednesday evening“for standing up for truth and integrity on a show that has been the gold standard of journalism for 57 years.”
Kimmel said Pelley “had had enough” after the “clowns who now run the show and the CBS News division” fired his colleagues, including Tanya Simon, Draggan Mihailovich, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. “That’s it for Scott Pelley,” Kimmel said. “He said the collapse of values at the top has become unsustainable. And he had him tell it to the new guy’s face at a staff meeting.” (Pelley’s tirade against the new “60 Minutes” leadership was leaked to the press and resulted in a meeting the next day that led to his firing.)
“The president obviously applauded this cowardly decision,” Kimmel added, joking: “He said Scott Pelley is part of a gang of corrupt, stupid people – unlike the gang of corrupt, stupid people he is part of.”
Pelley, who joined “60 Minutes” in 2004, was fired after telling Bilton he would “never be welcome” on the show while questioning his qualifications to editors. After a meeting between Pelley and the program’s new leadership, CBS decided to terminate his employment “for cause.” Bilton wrote to Pelley in a letter obtained by the Press: “Yesterday’s performative display of hostility – staged in front of staff rather than in a civil, private conversation – demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or in approaching my new term in office with a spirit open to collaboration and progress.
In a phone call with CBS News employees on Wednesday, Weiss defended the firing and accused Pelley of violating the staff’s foundation of “trust and mutual respect.”
Pelley then issued his own statement, claiming that “new management has directed me to inject falsehoods and biases into a politically sensitive story.” “I have been told to include claims that have not been verified,” Pelley wrote. “So far in every case I have managed to ignore or refuse these instructions.”
He continued: “The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave too.”
