CBS shelves ‘60 Minutes’ story on Trump deportees at the last minute: ‘People are threatening to quit,’ staffers say

“The public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship," CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi said of the network’s decision to abruptly shelve a “60 Minutes” segment this weekend. (Plexi Images/GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

CBS News suddenly shelved a “60 Minutes” segment featuring the accounts of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Now one of its own correspondents fears the program is being “dismantled,” and some employees are threatening to quit.

The correspondent who reported the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, said in an internal memo that “the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.”

According to Alfonsi and two CBS sources who spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity, the story had been fully fact-checked and legally vetted by the time the network publicized it on Friday afternoon.

But CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss weighed in with questions on Saturday morning, the two sources said. Alfonsi said Weiss “spiked the story.”

One of the main issues Weiss raised was the lack of a response from the Trump administration to the reporting.

According to Alfonsi, “we requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department.”

But the administration did not engage, which concerned Weiss. At one point, Weiss suggested that the program try to interview White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and provided Miller’s number, one of the CBS sources said.

Alfonsi argued in her memo that the administration’s strategic silence cannot be allowed to become a “veto” of a critical story.

“Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story,” 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 responded in a statement to The New York Times late Sunday night, “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason—that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices—happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”

Earlier in the day, CBS News said of the decision to hold the segment, “We determined it needed additional reporting.”

But Alfonsi disputed that in her memo. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” she wrote. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

“60 Minutes” segments are commonly screened several times before air, but five screenings is an unusually high number, the CBS sources said.

It is unclear when Weiss first viewed the story. But she has recently become personally involved in “60 Minutes” stories about politics, the CBS sources told CNN.

In another recent turn of events, President Trump has been blasting the newsmagazine on Truth Social, sounding disappointed in CBS’s new owners.

In late 2024, Trump sued CBS and its parent company, Paramount, then under different ownership, alleging “60 Minutes” deceptively edited a Kamala Harris interview to benefit her campaign.

That lawsuit, which legal experts widely viewed to be legally dubious, loomed large over Paramount’s attempt to merge with Skydance Media, a production company led by David Ellison and supported by Ellison’s father, Larry, the Oracle billionaire.

The lawsuit became a flashpoint inside CBS News, where journalists worried that both the old and new corporate leaders sought to mollify Trump at the cost of the newsroom’s credibility.

Eventually, the outgoing Paramount leadership team agreed to settle Trump’s lawsuit, and the incoming leadership team agreed to several concessions that satisfied the Trump-aligned FCC.

David Ellison took control of Paramount, lavished praise on “60 Minutes,” and said he wanted to strengthen CBS News. Then he acquired Weiss’s startup, The Free Press, for $150 million, and installed her as editor-in-chief.

Now in charge of both operations, Weiss has faced media industry skepticism about her lack of experience with TV management and traditional reporting.

At the end of October, Weiss traveled to Mar-a-Lago when CBS journalist Norah O’Donnell taped a “60 Minutes” sit-down with President Trump.

The president praised Weiss during the interview, though not by name, adding, “I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person.”

Earlier that same month, Trump also said of the Ellisons, “they’re friends of mine. Big — they’re big supporters of mine, and they’ll do the right thing.”

Over the past two weeks, however, Trump has lashed out at Ellison, who is currently waging a politically sensitive hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s owner.

On Dec. 8, he posted a screed against “60 Minutes” for interviewing Marjorie Taylor Greene, and claimed that since Paramount changed hands, the program “has actually gotten WORSE!” He repeated that opinion on Dec. 16, adding, “If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!”

The timing of his most recent complaint, on Friday night, coincided with the behind-the-scenes drama at “60 Minutes.”

“I love the new owners of CBS,” Trump said at a rally. “Something happens to them, though. ‘60 Minutes’ has treated me worse under the new ownership than… they just keep treating me, they just keep hitting me, it’s crazy.”

By then, CBS was already promoting the upcoming story, titled “INSIDE CECOT.”

Friday afternoon’s press release said “correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi speaks with some of the now released deportees, who describe the brutal and torturous conditions they endured inside CECOT.”

Alfonsi said in her memo, of those interviewees, “These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”

By Brian Stelter, CNN