TRUMP IN THE TOILET

 

 

Fire Bari Weiss

Memo to the Ellisons: no news organization survives when credible journalists accuse the boss of tampering with the content of multiple news stories.

Jennifer Schulze Jun 7

CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss

Bari Weiss must be fired. Today.

News requires credibility. News requires balance. News requires judgment. Leading a major news organization requires all of this, managerial talent, and organizational leadership. Eight months into her tenure, she has shredded the organization’s credibility, put her thumb on the scale to mock the very idea of balance, undermined those with better judgment, destroyed morale among the workforce, and her leadership skills are the kind where no one would follow her out of a burning building.

This week, three prominent and extremely credible journalists accused Weiss of tampering with the content of multiple news stories at 60 Minutes, the nation’s most watched news program. The most recent example comes from recently fired 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley who told the New York Times that Weiss pressured him to lie about the Renee Good killing in Minneapolis. (He did not.) Editorial interference like this is completely unacceptable and should not be tolerated, not by the CBS & the 60 Minutes staff, not by the corporate owners David and Larry Ellison, not by anyone.

Weiss via CBS public relations claims this was normal back and forth but it’s not. There are many layers of editors at 60 Minutes whose actual job it is to review and suggest updates to stories but none of them would surely ever consider asking Scott Pelley to fabricate details like Pelley alleges Weiss did here.

Together, Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega have over 100 years of hard hitting news reporting experience. They know how to ask tough questions, dig deep for hidden secrets, speak truth to power and tell honest, fair and objective news stories. Each of them has now publicly accused Bari Weiss or members of her management team of repeatedly overstepping acceptable news oversight to tamper with or even censor their news stories. It is hard to overstate how wildly inappropriate and dangerous that is.

Pelley’s latest accusations are truly mortifying. In an incredible interview with the New York Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Pelley detailed Weiss’ efforts to insert a pro-Trump narrative into his piece on the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Pelley had hinted at the editorial interference when he was fired from 60 Minutes last week saying in a statement that “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.”

Now in the NYT interview, Pelley goes into incredible, damning detail saying “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.“

He adds:

“We get the piece approved by everyone. And about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.

This is not what you see on the video. On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms. Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head, kills her, and says something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company.

We have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had. We had already scrubbed the video archives, looking for those scenes. Somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms. Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t driving toward him, but that’s what the president said about that, and that’s the way she wanted it described.”

The entire Pelley interview is jaw dropping but it’s Weiss’ attempt to change the facts of his story that really got me. It is hard to overstate how completely inappropriate and unprecedented that sort of corporate meddling is. Nor is it the first time Weiss has meddled with CBS news content trying to put a pro-Trump spin on it.

Last December, Weiss infamously shelved Sharyn Alfonsi’s piece on the CECOT torture prison claiming it needed an on camera response from the Trump administration even though the adm has repeatedly refused to participate. As has been well documented, Alfonsi went public at the time with allegations that Weiss spiked the story for political reasons, not legitimate editorial concerns. She wrote:

“If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.”

Weiss fired Alfonsi in the 60 Minutes bloodbath last week. Alfonsi has been a news reporter since Bari Weiss was in grade school. She’s worked in local TV news and at both ABC NEWS and CBS News including the last 10 years at 60 Minutes. Alfonsi knows how to report a credible news story unlike Weiss who is an opinion writer, not a news reporter. If, like Pelley, Alfonsi is raising an alarm about the corporate meddling at CBS, we should listen.

The same goes for the testimony coming from Cecilia Vega, the 3rd 60 Minutes correspondent who got the axe. Vega also shared examples of Weiss’ efforts to compromise 60 Minutes reporting. Vega wrote:

“In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions. Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven. It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”

These journalists have credibility. They got it the old fashioned way- they earned it. And what they are telling us is that CBS, under Weiss’ leadership, is no longer a credible news organization. It is, instead, a place where the things that make news news- fairness, accuracy, balance, judgement, reporting, fact checking, are less important than political spin.

That should have been more than enough reason for the remaining correspondents at 60 Minutes- Leslie Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim- to quit but so far, it’s not. It is beyond me that any of them can continue to work for a company and a news boss like Bari Weiss who so clearly violates every single journalism principle and so easily treats its employees like trash. The trio claims it’s staying because they don’t want 60 Minutes to die. I have news for Leslie, Bill and Jon: 60 Minutes is already dead, Bari Weiss killed it.

All of us who believe in the First Amendment and the importance of fact based journalism, should call out Weiss’s untoward behavior and put pressure on the Ellison’s to terminate her. Recall the outrage that quickly bubbled up when Disney pulled late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and his program off the air after pressure from Trump and his FCC chair? We need a similar response right now.

We as Americans must not acquiesce to the perversion and politicization of our mainstream news media. The country is already teetering from Trump’s authoritarian schemes. We cannot permit him and his acolytes to completely corrupt journalism, turning a credible news outlet into state media.

So call CBS News and Paramount/ Skydance to register your outrage and demand that Weiss be fired immediately. Turn off CBS. Many viewers have already done just that with the CBS Evening News and it is now suffering a historic ratings collapse. Let companies advertising on CBS know of your displeasure with news tampering and cancel your Paramount subscriptions. It’s the least we can do.

Jennifer Schulze is a former local TV news exec, reporter & producer based in Chicago with a few opinions about the news. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.

Dear President Ozymandias

 

Bret Stephens

Dear President Ozymandias

June 2, 2026

Credit...Eli Hiller/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images

By Bret Stephens

Opinion Columnist

To: Our greatest president

From: Your greatest fans

We are writing to let you know, sir, that we are as outraged as you are that some liberal judge has ordered that your name be stripped from the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Not only is the decision wrong, it’s also backward. You’ve survived three assassination attempts and yet the building will keep his name?

On a related subject, sir, we hope those knuckleheads in Congress won’t let some old law stand in the way of putting your face on a $250 bill. After all, nothing advertises the strength of a country’s economy like high-denomination bank notes. And since restaurant meals now often run to about $250 (minus drinks and dessert) for a party of four, making a bank note with your mug shot on it will be triply convenient: faster payment; a reminder of how affordable things have become under your presidency; and proof that, in the land of the free, you can get away with just about anything.

We’re also big supporters of your plan for your triumphal arch for Washington soaring a proud 250 feet, nearly as tall as the Capitol itself. Hopefully it will include large gold-plated statues of the greatest American leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln and yourself. People are calling it the “Arc de Trump,” like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. That one was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, just before such strokes of military genius as the Peninsular War, the invasion of Russia and the Hundred Days campaign of 1815.

Do you know they named a bridge and a train station in London in honor of the battle that ended that last excursion?

At any rate, leaders who build gargantuan triumphal arches always go on to greater military glory. Maybe yours will be for the liberation of Hormuz, though that may have to await the deployment of the new “Trump class” battleships after the first one commissions sometime around 2036.

We fear, however, that you may be missing significant opportunities to enhance your and your family’s visibility.

We were tempted to suggest, for example, that you consider renaming the Statue of Liberty the “Melania Knauss Trump Statue of Liberty,” in honor of the first immigrant — a legal immigrant, of course — to become first lady. But Lady Liberty isn’t exactly a “10,” except maybe in her dress size, and the poem about “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” is not on-brand when it comes to the Trump name.

For now, we have shelved the idea. But have you considered building a svelter “Statue of Melania,” 250 feet tall (not including the base), on nearby Governors Island? The inscription could read: “Give me your Central European catalog models and anyone willing to write a $25 million check.”

Future generations will find it inspirational.

We also believe you were too modest when you chose to rename the Gulf of Mexico after America rather than after yourself, as you had thought to do at first. But why settle for a mere gulf? The Atlantic Ocean is named for Atlas, a figure from Greek mythology, which makes little sense since Greece is nowhere near the Atlantic. And the Pacific Ocean, which is much larger than the Atlantic, was named after a brand of Mexican beer, Pacifico, which makes no sense at all.

You know what does make sense? Trump Oceans. Plural. It simplifies geography while amplifying your name.

And we cannot stop there.

You mustn’t be shy about putting your name to the new White House ballroom. And though we understand that adding your face to Mount Rushmore (for which there’s already a bill in Congress) may, alas, be a geological impossibility, why not, while it’s being repaired and redone, add the name TRUMP in huge gold-tiled letters to the floor of the Reflecting Pool in the National Mall? Ideally, these should be lit up at night in a way that can be visible from 30,000 feet, if not from space.

Speaking of space, aren’t we going back to the moon under your presidency? That’s got to mean naming rights in addition to bragging rights. At a minimum, our first lunar base must be named for you. (The second one can be named for Elon, or maybe Jeff, whoever is first, provided you’re still on good terms with either of them.) But why do we even call our planet’s moon “the Moon,” as if a generic noun should be a proper noun, too? That needs to change.

Get ready for it: Trump Moon.

Mr. President, there are so many ways to honor your priceless achievements and legacy, but we’ve already taken too much of your time. And time being the most valuable thing of all, it reminds us, finally, of a poem:

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Yours sincerely,

Percy, Bysshe and Shelley

 

Trump Has Failed as Commander in Chief

 

Thomas L. Friedman

Trump Has Failed as Commander in Chief

June 2, 2026

Credit...Photo Illustration by Naila Ruechel for The New York Times. Source

 

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

With each passing month of his presidency, Donald Trump behaves more like America’s commander in thief than its commander in chief.

How so? Let me count the ways. We are a nation at war today, with tens of thousands of troops deployed near Iran. Generally, when our nation has been at war, the commander in chief’s top domestic priority is to keep the country united. Because there is nothing more demoralizing for U.S. troops fighting abroad than to look back and see our country ripping itself apart at home. And there is nothing that encourages an enemy to hold out for better terms for ending a war with America than seeing America at war with itself.

And how has Trump risen to that commander-in-chief unifying duty? He has not lifted a finger to bring Democrats behind the war. Instead, he’s prioritized acting like a commander in thief. At the same moment Trump was asking our men and women in uniform to make the ultimate sacrifice, he engaged in a brazen, in-your-face attempted heist of the U.S. Treasury to benefit himself, his family and his political allies, which could include those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It was so outrageous that even some of his most reliable Republican Party sycophants couldn’t accept it.

Trump conspired with his own Justice Department, headed by his former personal lawyer, to use taxpayer money to create a $1.776 billion political slush fund, supposedly to compensate those Trump supporters who “suffered weaponization and lawfare” at the hands of his predecessor. In fact, as this paper’s editorial board noted, it would “reward loyalists willing to defy the law and commit violence on behalf of the president.”

Fortunately, a federal judge put a temporary hold on the scheme that no one described better than the Republican former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell: “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick.” In the face of all that opposition, Trump’s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said on Tuesday he was withdrawing this terrible plan.

If Trump had an ounce of integrity, instead of scheming to set aside $1.776 billion to potentially pay off these phony defenders of freedom’s frontier — loyalists who ransacked the halls of Congress — he would direct Congress to spend that exact amount to support today’s real defenders of freedom’s frontier: the Ukrainian Army. It is both resisting Vladimir Putin’s attempt to crush Ukraine’s democracy and sapping Russia’s ability to threaten the other free countries of Europe. God bless Ukraine’s fighters.

Alas, though, Trump apparently wants money only for people who tried to overthrow our Constitution at home, not for those who want to emulate our constitutional democracy abroad.

In addition, the Trump-directed Justice Department quietly inserted, as a supplement to that slush fund deal, a one-page document signed by Blanche stating that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” pending tax claims against Trump, his family members or his businesses. That measure remains in force, Blanche said on Tuesday.

President Trump has another moniker suggesting his ethical challenges: “trader in chief,” as The Associated Press recently proposed. Why? Because “recent presidents have stayed away from trading stocks in companies whose fortunes they could lift or scuttle with the stroke of a pen, but Donald Trump smashed that precedent in the first quarter of this year with more than 3,600 buy and sell orders,” The A.P. wrote, “many of them involving companies whose profits have been directly impacted by his decisions as head of the government.”

That was an average of 50 trades a day in stocks that included U.S. military suppliers affected by the Iran war. “If he were defense secretary, he would be committing a crime,” Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics adviser in the George W. Bush administration, told The A.P. “Technically he can do this, but it is a fundamental breach of trust.”

Not only has Trump choked off virtually all U.S. financial aid to Ukraine, but he is also reducing U.S. troops on the ground in NATO countries right when Putin, sensing he is losing the war, is increasingly threatening them.

Just as Americans are starting to realize that Trump is becoming a predator on our system — trying to manipulate the justice system to generate cash available to his Jan. 6 pirates and immunity from ongoing inquiries into taxes for himself and his family — our allies are concluding that Trump’s America is becoming a dangerous predator on them.

Indeed, something is happening with America’s traditional allies that I never thought I would see in this lifetime or the next. In the post-World War II era, we and our allies together embraced the doctrine of “deterrence” against the Soviet Union, and later Russia, to prevent any attempt by the Kremlin to forcibly expand its influence into the free world or put neighbors under its thumb.

Not any longer.

Our allies have watched Trump threaten to make Canada the 51st state and to seize Greenland from Denmark. They have watched him start a war with Iran without consulting NATO and then demand that NATO help rescue us from what has turned into a mess. They have watched him slash U.S. financial assistance to Ukraine, put the Russian aggressor on the same moral footing as that country and then top it all off with reckless, ill-conceived tariffs on all our allies.

As a result of all that, something unprecedented is happening: “Deterring Trump’s America is now becoming a strategic priority of our allies as much as deterring Russia was,” Nader Mousavizadeh, the chief executive of Macro Advisory Partners, a geopolitical consulting firm, and a former senior adviser to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, told me.

And how could it not? When you look at how Trump has hammered Canada with tariffs, it is hard not to conclude that the worst position for a country to be in during the second Trump administration “is to be America’s closest ally and have integrated your economy, energy systems and military with that of the United States,” Mousavizadeh said. Everyone can now see, he added, that Trump will “weaponize any country’s dependence on America and use it to extract whatever he can in the narrowest and most tactical and transactional definition of American power.”

No wonder that after Trump stepped up his rhetoric about taking over Greenland, European NATO members — Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland and the United Kingdom — all announced plans to send small military contingents to Greenland to bolster the Danes.

Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland, noted in an essay for the Atlantic Council that though these NATO allies tried to frame their move as necessary to bolster Arctic security, they also “have used the word ‘deterrence.’ For Europeans to speak in such terms about the United States, even implicitly, is a low point, but it is needed.”

Let’s not forget that early on Trump forced Ukraine to give the United States access to critical minerals in return for U.S. help against a Russian Army trying to overrun it. This is the real “Trump Doctrine”: Oppose America, and I will tariff you; depend on America, and I will extort you.

The only rational response for our allies is to try to “deter and diversify,” Mousavizadeh concluded. And if Trump keeps this up for his full four years, he added, “no NATO leader can ever again responsibly agree to the degree of dependence on U.S. technology, U.S. defense systems or financial systems” that NATO countries long took for granted.

I have been in Portugal this week and I have been shocked by the degree to which European business executives speak of having lost faith in American institutions and in America as the guarantor of global legal norms — something they have always taken for granted. It is literally disorienting for them, like hikers who have lost their compass.

In short, having a president who behaves like a commander in thief — not a commander in chief — is costing us dearly at home and abroad. This perversion of the American presidency is undermining the very alliance structure that won two world wars and the Cold War and generated one of history’s longest ages of peace and prosperity. Every day we tolerate such behavior we endanger our children’s future.