Fired “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley says CBS News editor Bari Weiss pushed his team to adjust a politically sensitive segment about ICE operations in Minnesota—requests he says conflicted with video evidence. Pelley made the claims on a New York Time
Scott Pelley didn’t describe the pressure as subtle. He said there was a “thumb on the scale” for President Donald Trump’s version of events—pressure he felt at CBS News during his decades-long run.
During an appearance on The New York Times podcast, “The Interview,” Pelley elaborated on a June 2 statement in which he said CBS News’ new management instructed him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”
“There was a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News,” Pelley told “The Interview.”
The allegation put CBS News’ internal conflict back in the spotlight after Pelley was fired last week. CBS News said in a statement that Weiss’ request had “no political motivation.” The spokesperson said Weiss raised points in editorial back-and-forth “solely to make the piece as strong. fair. and accurate as possible. ” and that “not everything she raised made it into the final piece.”.
Pelley’s account centers on a “60 Minutes” story produced in February detailing ICE operations in Minnesota, during which agents shot and killed Renee Good, and the subsequent anti-ICE protests.
Pelley said Weiss sent an email to his former boss, Tanya Simon, asking if they could make changes to the segment. In the email, Pelley said two requests stood out.
“One of the things in the email include[s]: Can we make the protesters look more violent?” Pelley said. “Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing was Renée Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.”
Pelley said the second request contradicted video evidence.
“I went over the video of the Renée Good killing over and over and over again. Stop motion. Slow motion. And realized the event was not as the president said and not the way Bari Weiss remembered it,” he said.
Pelley said Weiss could have been trying to be fair to the administration, but ultimately he believed the requests were driven by a political agenda.
“She could have been trying to be fair to the administration. except I felt that the story was abundantly fair to the administration and to the ICE officers and to the Border Patrol officers who were caught in that moment. ” Pelley said. “We were being told to write a version of events that conflicted with the video account.”.
CBS News fired Pelley last week after what the network described as clashes connected to its newly appointed leadership. Weiss had appointed Nick Bilton as the new “60 Minutes” executive producer, and Pelley made critical comments about Weiss, according to the account of the dispute.
Weiss told CBS News staffers that management attempted to engage with Pelley and “find a way back,” but said it didn’t work.
“[W]e weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways,” Weiss said, adding, “We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.”
In a statement at the time of his firing, Pelley said Weiss “knows what she said is not true.”
The CBS News shake-up has been wide. In addition to Pelley, CBS News fired correspondent Cecilia Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich. Anderson Cooper, a longtime correspondent on “60 Minutes,” left the show in May. CBS News also didn’t renew its contract with Sharyn Alfonsi. the correspondent who covered the Trump administration’s use of the Salvadoran prison.
Weiss’ broader changes at CBS News included pulling a December segment about the Trump administration’s use of El Salvador’s CECOT prison from the air and telling staffers in January that layoffs weren’t off the table.
The management fight sits within a timeline that goes back further than last week’s firings. Paramount Skydance, CBS News’ parent company, acquired Weiss’ anti-establishment news site, The Free Press, in October 2025. As part of the deal, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison appointed Weiss editor in chief of CBS’s newsroom.
The reporting around the shift included concerns from some staffers about Weiss’ lack of television experience and a perceived political bias.
Before the current turmoil around “60 Minutes. ” President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against Paramount in 2024. saying the outlet used “deceptive editing” in a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount initially fought the lawsuit but settled with Trump for $16 million in July 2025.
Ellison’s company, Skydance Media, merged with Paramount the following month.
On Sunday, Pelley described the settlement as a “bribe.”
“That lawsuit against 60 Minutes had caused a great deal of concern in ’60 Minutes.’ Paying the bribe broke our hearts,” he said. “No lawyer thought that was necessary.”
A spokesperson for CBS News later pushed back on the idea that Weiss’ editorial requests were political, saying the revisions were aimed at accuracy and fairness.
For Pelley, the dispute is not just about editorial preferences—it’s about how the story of what happened in Minnesota was framed, and whether the record was forced to bend away from what his team says the video showed.
Scott Pelley Bari Weiss CBS News 60 Minutes Nick Bilton Tanya Simon Renee Good ICE Minnesota anti-ICE protests David Ellison Paramount Skydance The Free Press CECOT prison Anderson Cooper Cecilia Vega Draggan Mihailovich Sharyn Alfonsi Donald Trump lawsuit deceptive editing