60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley has spoken out after he was fired from the program on Tuesday after a heated clash with CBS News executives—and Trump administration allies—Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton.
Pelley's contract was terminated following a contentious public dispute with 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.
Pelley is now the fourth reporter to exit 60 Minutes since February, leaving only Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim on the reporting roster as the program prepares for its next season.
In a letter to Pelley, Bilton called joining 60 Minutes "the honor of my career" and said "one of the first things I did in my new role was call you to talk and invite you to dinner," citing a desire to learn from the program's veterans.
He called it "a profound disappointment that you rejected that overture and chose ambush instead," adding:
"Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort."
"Yesterday's performative display of hostility—enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private convversation—demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tensure with a mind open to collaboration and progress."
"I am here to deliver first-in-class news programming, not to make headlines about newsroom drama. I am eager to work alongside those who share this goal. Despite yesterday's misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together. You made clear that you are not interested in such a path."
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News Inc. ("CBS") to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately."
You can see his letter below.
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But Pelley set things straight in a statement on Tuesday that was disseminated across multiple news channels. In it, he described 60 Minutes as a uniquely successful institution built on journalistic integrity, professionalism, and public trust.
He accused new network leadership of undermining those values, arguing that recent management decisions were motivated in part by a desire to win favor with the Trump administration. Moreover, he said the show's identity was damaged by the dismissal of senior leaders and correspondents, whom he described as defenders of fairness and editorial independence.
Pelley said, in part:
"There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes. The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world." ...
"Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. ... Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos."
"For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done."
"Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all. At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers."
"I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well."
You can see his statement below and also hear it read aloud in the accompanying video.
At the start of a conference call with CBS News employees on Wednesday morning, Weiss directly addressed the controversy, claiming she is "only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect.”
She said the following in remarks confirmed by Variety:
“Before we get into it, I need to address what’s transpired in our newsroom over the past two days and what is making news. I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here, when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect.”
“We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways. We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.”
But Pelley in another statement accused her of lying to her own staff members, saying that his meeting with Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski had in fact begun on a confrontational note, with the possibility of his dismissal being raised almost immediately:
“I’m saddened to see the transcript of the CBS News morning editorial meeting. Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true. In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to ‘find a way back,’ as Weiss said in the editorial meeting."
"At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution.”
Pelley also alleged that Weiss, Cibrowski, and Nick Bilton declined to answer his questions during the meeting, including inquiries about the decision to remove the senior leadership team at 60 Minutes. According to Pelley, Weiss did not explain why those personnel changes had been made, Cibrowski declared the conversation was "over," even "standing to show me the door."
He added:
"No constructive dialogue was allowed by the CBS executives at any point. I was stonewalled for about 10 minutes and then, for no apparent reason, 'This conversation is over.'"
“I am pained that the staff of CBS News was misled in the Wednesday morning conference call. These executives cannot gain the trust of the staff with lies. This is antithetical to everything we stand for and reveals contempt for what journalists do.”
You can see what he said below.
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Many have praised Pelley for speaking out and have condemned the actions of CBS' leadership.
In an interview with The New York Times, Pelley said he remained deeply committed to 60 Minutes after spending decades with the program and risking his safety reporting from conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine. Weiss' conduct, he said, “was cold and callous and beneath the dignity of CBS News.”
Pelley also recounted returning to the 60 Minutes newsroom after his meeting with management, where staff members were waiting anxiously for news about his future. After hours without a decision, he said he told employees to go home before leaving the office himself.
Reacting to Pelley’s dismissal, former 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi—who was herself terminated the previous week and whose firing Pelley had reportedly questioned management about—said Pelley had been punished for doing his job. Alfonsi said "If you need one sentence that tells you exactly what CBS News has become under Bari Weiss, that’s it.”
Alfonsi had been on thin ice at CBS for some time given that she previously called out Weiss 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, 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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