On a Wednesday morning staff call, CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss defended the decision to fire correspondent Scott Pelley, saying his outburst in a Monday meeting shattered “trust and mutual respect.” Weiss said CBS tried to engage and find a way back, b
Bari Weiss began the Wednesday morning call by stopping her staff as the newsroom tried to move on from two tense days. What she wanted to address, she said, wasn’t just the noise—it was what had happened in their newsroom and what was now making news.
“I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect,” Weiss told staffers at the start of the conference call, according to multiple reports. “We cannot do our work without it.”
Weiss’s message was direct: she said the “foundation was broken on Monday” during a staff-wide meeting, when correspondent Scott Pelley railed against Weiss and new executive producer Nick Bilton.
She told staffers that CBS attempted to engage with Pelley and “to find a way back,” but “unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways.”
Weiss thanked Pelley for his contributions, but framed the termination as something he chose, not something CBS pursued.
“We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose,” she said. “That unfortunate outcome does not discount from the amazing contributions and work that Scott Pelley has done for CBS and for 60 Minutes over the course of his career.”
A CBS News representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The firing landed after a highly charged run of meetings inside the CBS news ecosystem. The former “CBS Evening News” anchor put Weiss on blast in a heated meeting Monday morning following last week’s dismissal of executive producer Tanya Simon and a number of correspondents. including “Inside CECOT” journalist Sharyn Alfonsi.
In leaked audio, Pelley said, “She’s murdering ‘60 Minutes.’ She does not love this place.” He added that Weiss “was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that,” interrupting the staff meeting with Simon’s replacement, Bilton.
Pelley’s anger also turned toward Bilton. On Tuesday evening, after a sitdown with Pelley, Bilton announced he was being terminated for cause.
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” Bilton wrote in a letter sent to Pelley. “And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”
Pelley responded the same night, releasing a lengthy note accusing Paramount CEO David Ellison of meddling with CBS in pursuit of political closeness.
He alleged that Ellison was “curry[ing] favor” with Donald Trump, arguing, “Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. The waste is heartbreaking.”
Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is currently seeking final approval from Trump’s Department of Justice over the Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
The sequence inside the newsroom has left staff facing a stark choice between competing narratives: Weiss says the threshold was crossed when trust and mutual respect were broken on Monday. while Pelley casts his dismissal as part of something bigger—meddling tied to the network’s new ownership and its relationship to the Trump administration.
Bari Weiss Scott Pelley CBS News 60 Minutes Nick Bilton Tanya Simon Sharyn Alfonsi David Ellison Paramount Skydance Donald Trump Warner Bros. Discovery merger