“60 Minutes” on Sunday plans to air a story about Trump administration deportations that was abruptly pulled from the newsmagazine’s lineup a month ago, sparking an internal battle about political pressure that spilled out into the open.
In the story, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi spoke to deportees who had been sent to El Salvador’s notoriously harsh CECOT prison. When the segment critical of the administration was struck from the Dec. 21 episode on order of new CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, Alfonsi told her “60 Minutes” colleagues that it “was not an editorial decision, it was a political one.”
Weiss argued that the story did not sufficiently reflect the administration’s viewpoint or advance reporting that had been done by other news organizations earlier.
The story was updated to include Trump administration statements, although it has no new on-camera interviews. Alfonsi was also set to give more details about the two migrants that she interviewed about their experiences in the prison, according to someone familiar with the broadcast who spoke under condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to give details in advance.
“CBS News leadership has always been committed to airing the ”60 Minutes” CECOT piece as soon as it was ready,” the news division said in a statement. “Tonight, viewers get to see it, along with other important stories, all of which speak to CBS News’ independence and the power of our storytelling.”
The decision became a flashpoint for critics who said the appointment of Weiss, founder of the Free Press website who had no previous experience in television news, represented an attempt by the network’s new corporate leadership to curry favor with Trump.
Alfonsi said in her email that administration officials had declined to make anyone available for an on-camera interview, calling that a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.
While pulled from the broadcast in December, Alfonsi’s original story mistakenly became available online. CBS News had fed a version of the newsmagazine to Global Television, a network that airs “60 Minutes” in Canada, which posted it on its website before the last-minute switch removing the piece.
That enabled sharp-eyed viewers to see what Weiss had rejected, offering the opportunity to compare it to what “60 Minutes” eventually put on the air.
In the version shown in Canada, Alfonsi said the administration declined requests for interviews and referred questions about the prison’s operation to the government of El Salvador, which did not respond to “60 Minutes.” The story included a brief clip of President Donald Trump saying the prison operators “don’t play games,” and one from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying that “heinous monsters, rapists, murderers, sexual assaulters, predators who have no right to be in this country” were sent there.
Since Weiss’ appointment, Trump administration officials have been more visible on CBS News, in interviews that she sometimes helped arrange. The president himself was interviewed by Norah O’Donnell on “60 Minutes” on Nov. 2.
The New York Times reported Saturday that after Trump was interviewed last week by new “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil, Leavitt told the network that “we’ll sue your ass off” if the exchange wasn’t aired in full.
All of the 13-minute interview was shown Tuesday, an unusual step for one of the broadcast networks’ evening newscasts, a half hour summary of the day’s big stories. CBS told The Times that it had decided to run the interview unedited at the time it was booked.