"Is this supposed to be fun? Am I supposed to be serious? Am I supposed to be a comedian?"

Trump finally gets his White House Correspondents' Dinner speech:

Was he just supposed to take up where he left off before he was so rudely interrupted?

"I could never [do] the speech that I had ready just a short while [ago]. Oh, that was going to be a doozy. I was so psyched. I was going to rip people and I don't know, just something changed and it's really for the better. But I just wouldn't want to do that. But we'll do a little ripping if you don't mind...."

ADDED: I just listened to the whole "little ripping." He told a lot of bad jokes, often stopping to ask "who wrote this?" Sample bad joke: "I thought Kaitlan [Collins] had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I [was informed] that it wasn't her on the Bud Light can. It was Dylan Mulvaney."

Then there's the joke he said he thought was the best one: "The other day, a senator I knew got a text, a great guy, from his wife, and she said, 'When you get home, I want to have you immediately come up the stairs and make love to me.' And he said, 'I can't do both.'" He had to say, "Does anybody get that?" And then: "That was actually the only thing I thought was good in this whole freaking stupid speech that they wrote." They wrote. Don't blame him. He's trying to use the old Johnny Carson method of improvising jokes about how the monologue is failing. 

I see he took the same position I took on Graham Platner: "I think Platner might have done surprisingly well because we're in the age of Trump.... People can do well today. Platner, I don't know. But, you know, people don't have the guts to stick it out.... He certainly didn't defend himself very well...."

And here's the joke I thought was the best: "Under my administration, a once-feared and powerful regime that relentlessly attacked America has finally been toppled. Their former leaders have been removed and they're now being run by a gay dictator facing internal divisions. But I for one wish Bari Weiss all the best at CBS News. She's a wonderful woman."

AND: Near the end, he offers "somewhat of a scoop": "My intention to run for a fourth term as President of the United States." He puts on a red "Trump 2028" cap. It's a double joke — that he's running beyond the constitutional term limit and that he's already won more than twice — and he leans into it, to make sure they get it: "I won three times. Now I'm going to do it again.... I'm going to do it again. It should be easy. I'm getting very good at running for President. No, I won three times. Did very well the second time, by the way. It's a rigged election...."

"Do you think Bari Weiss needs to be removed?"/"Oh, gosh, yes. Look, she’s a lovely person. And her Free Press organization that she founded has been very successful. But television’s not her thing."

"This is like somebody walking up to me and saying, 'There’s a 747, there are 400 people on it, we need you to fly it to Paris.' I’m going to decline because I don’t have a clue. And it would have been so much better if Bari Weiss had been offered this job and said, 'Oh, that’s not for me, I don’t know how to do that.'"

That's Scott Pelley, answering a question in "The Interview/Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at '60 Minutes'" (NYT).

Here's the entire interview (with a transcript at YouTube):

"Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt... a performative display of hostility...."

"Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you."

Said Nick Bilton, "60 Minutes" executive producer, quoted in "Scott Pelley fired from ‘60 Minutes’ after confrontation with new boss/The termination marks the latest shake-up during a tumultuous period for the iconic newsmagazine" (WaPo).

What did Pelley say at that meeting?: "[Bari Weiss is] murdering ‘60 Minutes.... She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that. She has no qualifications for her job.... What qualifies you [Bilton] to be in this position?... You have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic. So why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?"

She does not love this place — How important is it that the insiders to a show love it? That could lead you awry. Outsiders were brought in to look at it critically — not through the eyes of love — and perhaps to put journalistic principles above catering to insiders who were enjoying the lovable place they had built and maintained. Maybe those erstwhile outsiders are actually terrible, and they are reshaping the place into something that suits them and ruins it for the longtime insiders. But Bilton is charged with running the place, and Pelley chose to insist on getting fired.

"On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American."

"Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."

Said this CBS News man, presumably the current anchor of the "Evening News," which posts this clip without telling us the man's name....

"On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."

That changes now. The new CBS Evening News… pic.twitter.com/NKdvRJjYCS

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 1, 2026

I have no idea who this man is, I don't find his delivery confidence-inspiring, and I haven't watched the CBS Evening News since the days of its famously confidence-inspiring figurehead Walter Cronkite. 

I guess this clip, which appeared at the top of my "For you" feed at X, is supposed to make me believe that change is afoot at CBS. I'm not going to start watching the show to find out. I'll be seeing — and blogging — video clips as they appear on websites I read.

"What we have is Karoline Leavitt's soundbite claiming they are evildoers in America (rapists, murderers, etc.). But isn't there much more to ask in light of the torture that we are revealing?"

"Tom Homan and Stephen Miller don't tend to be shy. I realize we've emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record."

Wrote Bari Weiss, in an internal memo justifying her action, noting the failure to "present the administration's argument."

Quoted in "Scoop: Weiss told top '60 Minutes' producers that delayed segment had problems" (Axios).

Also at Axios: "Yanked '60 Minutes' episode aired in Canada." 

It's easy to find the whole segment on line, but I'm not going to link to it.

Here's the NYT article about the controversy: "Turmoil at CBS News After Bari Weiss Pulls a ‘60 Minutes’ Segment/Several veteran correspondents questioned how Ms. Weiss, the new CBS News editor in chief, had handled the segment, after she defended her decision on a call with the newsroom." Excerpt:

"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."

Said Bari Weiss, quoted in "'60 Minutes’ Pulled a Segment. A Correspondent Calls It ‘Political.' Sharyn Alfonsi, a '60 Minutes' correspondent, criticized the network’s decision to remove her reporting from Sunday’s edition of the show" (NYT).

ADDED: Oh, for the golden age of "60 Minutes":

 

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The ignominious Chia Pet deployed against Bari Weiss.

The headline at Variety is "Big Advertisers Appear Wary of CBS News’ Bari Weiss Town Hall Format." 

Not only is there that dismissive rhyme — "Wary of... Bari" — there's the attack of the Chia Pet:

The news special aired at 8 p.m. on Saturday, one of the least-watched hours in broadcast TV. And that may have contributed to a relative dearth of top advertisers appearing to support the show. During the hour, commercial breaks were largely filled with spots from direct-response advertisers, including the dietary supplement SuperBeets; the home-repair service HomeServe.com; and CarFax, a supplier of auto ownership data. Viewers of of the telecast on WCBS, CBS’ flagship station in New York, even saw a commercial for Chia Pet, the terra-cotta figure that sprouts plant life after a few weeks....

The ignominious Chia Pet!

For a substantive overview of the town hall, you might read "7 highlights from Erika Kirk's CBS News town hall." Did you watch it? Did you watch it in the actual 8 p.m. time slot? Do you feel you ought to watch it, as you obviously still can, on YouTube, or do you feel you already know everything Bari Weiss and Erika Kirk might say to each other? 

"During an interview in September 2024, Mr. Dokoupil challenged the author Ta-Nehisi Coates about a new book he had written on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

"Mr. Dokoupil told Mr. Coates that some of the material in the book 'would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,' adding, 'what is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place?'... Some CBS journalists objected to how Mr. Dokoupil had handled the interview, and the news division’s leadership rebuked the anchor on a newsroom-wide conference call, saying the interview had fallen short of editorial standards. That prompted Shari Redstone, the owner of Paramount at the time, to defend Mr. Dokoupil and reprimand her own executives, saying 'they made a mistake' in questioning the anchor...."

From "Tony Dokoupil Is Named Anchor of ‘CBS Evening News’/He replaces John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois in one of the most high-profile decisions of Bari Weiss’s early tenure as the network’s editor in chief" (NYT).

Here's how Bari Weiss's Free Press covered the story at the time: "How Is CBS Marking October 7? By Admonishing Tony Dokoupil":

"60 Minutes," wisely, makes the extended version of its interview with Trump available on YouTube.

Who would want to watch the edited version... other than to launch an investigation of the editing process? Presumably, it was a condition of Trump's participation that the unedited version would need to be posted. Also, "60 Minutes" is now under the watchful eye of Bari Weiss. That should make Trump more trustful and perhaps he wants to help Weiss succeed... if she plays the game his way and helps him succeed... which may consist merely of playing it fair.

I've listened to part of this interview, and I did notice that O'Donnell was interrupting Trump with repeated little jabs early on in his answers. I do not think O'Donnell would do that to, say, Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, even though Biden and Harris are far more likely to babble nonresponsively and run out the clock. But Trump is great at taking whatever energy is thrown his way and turning it into something that works for him.

O'Donnell would say things like "Have some of these [ICE] raids gone too far?"

"As she took the helm, [Bari] Weiss sent around a friendly-sounding note to the news staff that had one particularly notable line."

"Among her 'core journalistic values,' she wrote, is 'journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny.' Sounds good, but the two parties are far from equal these days. 'CBS should brace for a heavy dose of bothsiderism,' wrote Oliver Darcy in his Status newsletter, observing that the Free Press has, as its central thesis, 'that Trump and his supporters are largely right about the cultural rot of the woke-elite' and liberal overreach (wokeness) is a bigger problem than Trump’s existential threats to American democracy...."

Writes Margaret Sullivan, in "Bari Weiss is a weird and worrisome choice as top editor for CBS News/When Weiss was named editor-in-chief, it was the latest turn in the network’s confounding departure from its roots" (The Guardian).

Here's my post from yesterday reprinting Weiss's note with 10 principles of journalism. My only comment was "I particularly like #6."

#6 was "Journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny."

So what if "the two parties are far from equal these days"? When you hold unequal entities to equal scrutiny what you see is their inequality!

I think Margaret Sullivan has lost track of the meaning of equality. It doesn't mean reaching equal outcomes. It means applying the same standard. 

"Bari Weiss outlines 10 principles that will guide her leadership of CBS News."

 Headline at Axios, with this list from Weiss's memo to CBS News staff:

1. Journalism that reports on the world as it actually is.
2. Journalism that is fair, fearless and factual.
3. Journalism that respects our audience enough to tell the truth plainly — wherever it leads.
4. Journalism that makes sense of a noisy, confusing world.
5. Journalism that explains things clearly, without pretension or jargon.
6. Journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny.
7. Journalism that embraces a wide spectrum of views and voices so that the audience can contend with the best arguments on all sides of a debate.
8. Journalism that rushes toward the most interesting and important stories, regardless of their unpopularity.
9. Journalism that uses all of the tools of the digital era.
10. Journalism that understands that the best way to serve America is to endeavor to present the public with the facts, first and foremost.

I particularly like #6.

"People are using words like depressing and doomsday – feels like some sort of doomsday."

Said one reporter, quoted in "'It’s not a good place right now’: CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom/'People are using words like depressing and doomsday – feels like some sort of doomsday,’ one source told The Independent about the mood inside CBS News right now" (The Independent).

Network staffers also told The Independent that Weiss would have a tough time gaining the respect of the newsroom because they see her as something of a “political operative,” adding that CBS News is already “not a welcoming place for outsiders.” “There are so many people who've come in here and been chewed up and spit out that the idea that somebody that we don't want is going to come in here and somehow manage to survive this is, I think, laughable,” the CBS reporter declared. “So she's in for, I would venture to guess, a rough ride.”

"Bari Weiss to be named top editor at CBS News/Paramount Skydance will acquire the journalist’s publication, the Free Press, which she started after quitting the New York Times in 2020."

The Washington Post reports.

"If all this comes to pass, it will cement [Bari] Weiss as a key figure in shaping the national news environment, just five years after her much publicized resignation from the New York Times..."

"... over what she characterized as a censorious and hostile workplace. This came in the wake of the resignation of the editorial page editor, James Bennet, after a staff uproar over the publication of Senator Tom Cotton’s opinion piece calling for military intervention against Black Lives Matter protesters.... If Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press goes through, Weiss will probably be in a position to recruit a network of snitches and rightwing thought police, both from within existing CBS staff and from her own publication, ensconced throughout one of the four largest US media conglomerates. CBS staffers are reportedly 'apoplectic' at the news of her impending role.... When Trump first ran for office, Weiss positioned herself as a 'Never Trumper'.... [Later] she saw the left’s 'overzealous, out-of-touch, hysterical reaction to him' as 'extraordinarily authoritarian and totalitarian in its impulses'.... ... Trump could never operate in the kinds of spaces where Weiss has been able to flourish.... [S]he is uniquely well-suited to champion the prerogatives of those in academia, media, publishing and similar sectors who feel threatened by progressive social movements."

From "Disgruntled NYT journalist to ‘anti-woke’ power grab: how far can Bari Weiss go?/After leaving the New York Times, she turned her Substack into an unshakable pro-Israel voice. Now as Paramount eyes acquisition of her company, Weiss is poised to become Trump’s ally among media elites" (Guardian).

"But I think the meta text of why it was so shocking was all of the people that were waved off as conspiracy theorists. Right wing fever swamp people were completely right."

"Were a hundred percent right. They were completely right. And the people who, you know, even now, you know, you still hope they're telling the truth. Like maybe we can trust some of what they say they were this profoundly wrong. I think that is like the, the deeper layer of the shock."

Says Bari Weiss, somewhat babblingly. 

Jake Tapper, who has more reason to babble, speaks eloquently:

"The Biden administration used so-called 'climate equity' to justify handouts of billions of dollars to their far-left friends."

"It is my utmost priority to get a handle on every dollar that went out the door in this scheme and once again restore oversight and accountability over these funds. This rush job operation is riddled with conflicts of interest and corruption."

Said EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, quoted by Bari Weiss (at X).

Weiss writes: "The Department of Justice is investigating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion program that was part of Joe Biden’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Created in the spring of 2023, and managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the fund was supposed to be a 'first-of-its-kind' program to address the climate crisis while revitalizing communities that it considered 'historically left behind.' But it appears little of the $27 billion revitalized anything—except the coffers of a range of environmental nonprofits associated with former Obama and Biden administration officials.."

"Everybody says this who meets with him, but like, he's, he's an incredible host. So we, we met with him at Bedminster Golf Club in, in New Jersey...

"... which is like, you know, absolutely beautiful, you know, we had a great time.... [What did Trump serve at dinner?] Oh, he said, he said what do you guys want to eat? And I, I just, I, for some reason I was just like, I, I, I, I know exactly what to say and I'm like, meat, I want meat. And so he literally ordered every meat dish. And, and by the way, he ordered every meat dish and nothing else. [There were no sides?] There were no sides.... It was all meat and it was glorious. There was so much meat. I don't think there was room on the table for sides. [Were there drinks or no alcohol?] There? It was a diet coke. He, he, he, he mainlines diet coke. And I was mainlining it right next to him."

Said Marc Andreessen — with questions from Bari Weiss in brackets — in this "Honestly" podcast episode. This is a great podcast. (Andreessen, to quote Weiss, "got his start as the co-creator of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser... He then co-founded Netscape... [and] now runs a venture capital firm... [that] invested in Airbnb, Coinbase, Instagram, Instacart, Pinterest, Slack, Reddit, Lyft and Oculus to name just a few.")

There's a nice "lightning round" at the end of the podcast. After asking about the food Trump, the "incredible host," served at Bedminster, Weiss asks: "Tomorrow you wake up and you're the DNC chair, what's the first thing you would do?"

"During the Cold War, we classified entire areas of physics and took them out of the research community—entire branches of physics went dark..."

"... and didn’t proceed. If we decide we need to, we’re going to do the same thing to the math underneath AI."

Said Marc Andreessen, on the podcast "Honestly with Bari Weiss."

Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) says he attended “absolutely horrifying” meetings where Biden’s government vowed to take “complete control” over AI technology:

“They basically said AI is going to be a game of 2 or 3 big companies working closely with the government… We’re going to… pic.twitter.com/REjkfgJkyV

— Honestly with Bari Weiss (@thehonestlypod) December 10, 2024

Here's a transcript of the entire podcast. Excerpt, giving context to the quote above:

"[CBS journalist Tony] Dokoupil met for an hour with members of the CBS News standards and practices team and the in-house Race and Culture Unit..."

"... which advises on 'context, tone and intention' of news programming. The conversation focused on Mr. Dokoupil’s tone of voice, phrasing and body language during his interview with [Ta-NeHisi] Coates.... Executives who discussed the interview on Monday’s call had asked staff members to keep their remarks confidential. But their comments were reported within hours by Puck, and The Free Press, the news and opinion site run by Bari Weiss, published audio recordings of the meeting.... Jan Crawford, the chief legal correspondent at CBS News, spoke up later on the call to say she did not understand why Mr. Dokoupil’s questions had not met editorial standards. 'When someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself acknowledges that he has, it’s my understanding that as journalists we are obligated to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can have that access to the truth or a fuller account,' Ms. Crawford said. 'To me, that is what Tony did.' Ms. Crawford said she was confused as to how CBS correspondents should proceed. 'What is the objective standard for the rest of us when we are doing our own interviews?' she asked."

From "CBS Rebukes Anchor Over Tense Interview With Ta-Nehisi Coates/Executives said the interview, conducted by the morning show anchor Tony Dokoupil, had fallen short of network editorial standards" (NYT). You can see video of Dokoupil questioning Coates here.

"I support and vote for Trump over Harris"... says Rand Paul.

While he continues to withhold an official endorsement, Senator @RandPaul will “support and vote for Trump over Harris… the Democrat Party is the one of Santa Claus, disbursing gifts to children…

For someone who’s concerned about the debt, the Republican Party is the better… pic.twitter.com/K2vKmTWPIc

— Honestly with Bari Weiss (@thehonestlypod) September 24, 2024