CBS News is facing heavy criticism after publishing a "blatantly racist" headline about Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed that was reportedly greenlit by Bari Weiss, the organization's editor-in-chief.
CBS has experienced noticeable right wing shift after its parent company, Paramount, sought government approval for a merger with Skydance. The FCC later approved the merger and Paramount paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump, which critics said amounted to a payoff to secure the merger's approval.
Months later, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison unveiled a deal—reportedly valued at $150 million—to purchase Weiss’ contrarian outlet The Free Press, while also installing her as the top editorial leader at CBS News. The move fueled speculation among media analysts that Ellison was attempting to bolster the network’s credibility with Trump and the broader MAGA base.
At the center of the current controversy is a report CBS News published on Monday examining deleted social media posts by El-Sayed, with reporter Zak Hudak detailing remarks that had not previously been reported.
The headline focused on the former posts and questioned whether they warranted renewed scrutiny of El-Sayed’s past comments, reading:
“Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks.”
The media newsletter Status reported that Weiss specifically directed that the headline call attention to El-Sayed’s deleted references to the September 11 attacks. The 41-year-old El-Sayed was only 16 years old on 9/11.
Hudak’s report identified two posts from 2020 in which El-Sayed drew a comparison between the growing number of deaths from COVID-19 and the nearly 3,000 people killed on September 11.
El-Sayed argued that the scale of the pandemic warranted a similarly broad national mobilization. In one post, El-Sayed said he hoped the country would devote the following decade to a “war for public health & against poverty,” invoking the government’s response to terrorism after 9/11 and arguing that such an effort could “save lives rather than take them.”
The article also examined a 2021 post in which El-Sayed expressed sympathy for those killed or injured in the attacks before pointing to the loss of life and destruction that resulted from the military campaigns launched in their aftermath.
Hudak further addressed El-Sayed’s past connection to progressive commentator Hasan Piker, who drew widespread criticism in 2019 after saying that “America deserved 9/11” before walking back the statement. El-Sayed has since made clear that he does not share Piker’s view.
When asked to clarify his remarks, El-Sayed said:
“My point is just to say that what happened on 9/11 is a disaster. It was a terrible attack on our country, and our responsibility is also to think about how do we build an America where we are protecting our servicemen and women from being asked to fight wars we have no business fighting that ultimately end up doing harm to people. And we’re seeing that right now.”
The report soon caught the eye of Arizona Democratic Representative Yassamin Ansari, who said the headline was an "insane, blatantly racist" one.
Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib said the headline betrayed CBS' "racist" nature and "bias." She said that "targeting Abdul like this is intentional and coordinated."
Others have also condemned CBS and Weiss.
Weiss' leadership decisions have sparked further concerns about CBS' editorial shift since 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley was fired after a heated clash with network executives earlier this year.
Pelley's contract was terminated following a contentious public dispute with Nick Bilton, a former technology reporter recently brought in by Weiss, who has also overseen a broader shake-up that included the departure of senior producers and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Other reporters have left since.
Pelley accused new network leadership of undermining journalistic integrity, professionalism, and public trust, arguing that recent management decisions were motivated in part by a desire to win favor with the Trump administration. Pelley said "the collapse of values at the top has become untenable" and that "the leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable."
Weiss was also called out for killing a 60 Minutes segment about El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison facility. The planned segment was reportedly set to sharply criticize the Trump administration’s handling of migrants detained by ICE and sent to the prison.
After the decision, Alfonsi, who led the investigation, went public, openly challenging her boss and sharing internal details about how and why the story was killed. She said in a letter leaked to media outlets that killing the story "after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one."
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