Bari Weiss, who has been editor in chief at CBS News for two months, was reportedly responsible for airing a “60 Minutes” segment about the “brutal and tortuous conditions” in prisons in El Salvador where the Trump administration deported suspected illegal immigrants to detention, according to reports.
The CBS News program abruptly announced Sunday, three hours before airtime, that the segment would be postponed to a future broadcast date. As previously announced, the report would feature correspondent Sharin Alfonsi interviewing deportees sent by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s Center for Counter-Terrorism (CECOT) prison.
Weiss spiked coverage on Saturday after requesting “numerous changes to the segment,” The New York Times reported. Among Weiss’ suggestions was that the article include an interview with Chief of Staff Stephen Miller or another senior Trump administration official. Weiss provided Miller’s contact information to the “60 Minutes” team working on the CECOT segment, the newspaper said. Alfonsi said he has already reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department for comment.
“Our story has been reviewed five times and cleared by both CBS’s lawyers and standards and practices. It is factually correct. In my view, retracting it now, after meeting all of our rigorous internal checks, is a political decision, not an editorial decision,” Alfonsi said in an email to CBS colleagues Sunday, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Alfonsi also wrote, “We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Viewers expect it. If it is not aired without a credible explanation, the public will correctly perceive this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a week of political silence.”
Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media analyst, tweeted that 60 Minutes staffers were “threatening to quit over this.”
CBS News did not respond to a request for comment.
The incident comes after President Trump complained two weeks ago of what he perceived to be unfair treatment by “60 Minutes,” claiming that “60 Minutes has actually gotten worse!” since David Ellison and his father, wealthy Trump supporter Larry Ellison, finalized a deal to buy Paramount (CBS’ parent company).
President Trump criticized the Ellisons again on “60 Minutes” last week, writing in a Dec. 16 post on his Truth social account, “To those who consider themselves close to the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse than they have ever treated me since the so-called ‘takeover.” If they were my friends, I wouldn’t want to meet them!”
In an announcement Sunday, “60 Minutes” shared an “editor’s note” that read, “Tonight’s 60 Minutes lineup has been updated. Our report “Inside CECOT” will be aired on a future broadcast.” The statement was posted on social media around 4:30pm ET on Sunday. The episode was scheduled to air at 7:30 PM ET on the East Coast (or after the NFL broadcast on CBS ends).
Asked earlier why the segment was postponed, a CBS News spokesperson said, “The 60 Minutes report on ‘Inside CECOT’ will be aired on a future broadcast. We have determined that additional reporting is necessary.”
According to the US-based National Immigration Law Center, in March and April 2025, the US government secretly sent more than 280 young people to CECOT, a foreign prison known for torture, without any notification to their loved ones or lawyers. There, they were held in isolation and tortured. Four months later, 252 of the men were released from prison and “sent to their native Venezuela, especially the country to which many of the men had originally fled fearing persecution,” the group said.
Earlier this month, President Trump slammed Leslie Stahl’s “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Dec. 7 with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a former Trump supporter who has recently criticized the president on a variety of issues. The president wrote on Truth Social that Stahl, a “Trump hater,” “interviewed a traitor who was very unprepared and made a lot of confused and really stupid statements.”
Trump continued, “But my real problem with this show, not some low-IQ traitor, was that Paramount’s new ownership of 60 Minutes would allow a show like this to air. They’re no better than the old ownership.” Trump also pointed to Paramount Global seeking to complete the deal with Skydance Media, which paid him $16 million this summer to settle a lawsuit over his October 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, which Trump claimed was deceptively edited, thereby causing personal harm to him and interfering with the 2024 election.
David Ellison announced in October a deal reportedly worth $150 million to buy Weiss’ contrarian media outlet, the Free Press. The company also appointed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. Industry insiders speculated that the move was aimed at improving CBS News’ position on President Trump and the MAGA movement.
Meanwhile, just months after the completion of the Skydance-Paramount deal, Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison, launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, attempting to persuade shareholders to reject a deal with WBD and Netflix that would have acquired Warner Bros. Studios operations and HBO Max.
Instead of reporting on CECOT, Sunday’s “60 Minutes” aired a segment from correspondent John Wertheim, explaining: “John Wertheim travels to Nottingham, England, to visit the Kane-Mason family. Still under the age of 30, all are acclaimed classical musicians whose talents are truly memorable. As they take to the world stage, this extraordinary septet discovers that the orchestra is greater than the sum of its parts, supporting each other in harmony. ”
The Dec. 21 episode of “60 Minutes” also featured a double-length segment on “Sherpa of Everest,” in which correspondent Cecilia Vega treks to Mount Everest’s base camp guided by a 19-year-old Sherpa.
