At the end of October, the network announced a round of layoffs, the first under its new ownership. Eight on-air personalities were let go, all of them women. Debora Patta, who had been publicly accused by Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, of improperly editing an interview he’d given her, was laid off despite having recently re-signed her contract. (Patta denied any improper editing.) Another round of layoffs is expected in the coming months.
In December, Weiss herself hosted an hour-long special—a town hall with Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk. The audience members who asked questions included the father of a woman who was murdered, last May, in an antisemitic hate crime in Washington, D.C.; the Utah student who was asking Kirk a question when he was shot and killed; and a twenty-six-year-old woman who wanted to know if dating in New York as a Christian was worthwhile. Ratings for the special were poor. The network has since announced that it would air more town halls, with guests such as Vice-President J. D. Vance and OpenAI’s C.E.O., Sam Altman, but Weiss has no plans to host another special.
Dokoupil, meanwhile, had been promoted to anchor “CBS Evening News.” “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,” he said in a promotional video for the show. “Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or élites and not enough on you.” In comments on Instagram, he added that he would be “more accountable and more transparent than Cronkite or any one else of his era.”
Four days later, Dokoupil’s first official broadcast was marred by technical issues. As he began to introduce a segment about Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, footage from a story about the Arizona senator Mark Kelly started to roll onscreen. “First day,” Dokoupil said. “First day, big problems here.” Weiss has been heavily involved in writing and editing Dokoupil’s scripts. She and the producing team had been making last-minute changes to the broadcast, leading to the hiccup.
“CBS Evening News,” Weiss’s most visible experiment with form to date, has not yet proved to be more successful or journalistically sound than what came before. On January 6th, Dokoupil only mentioned the fifth anniversary of the riot at the Capitol very briefly, near the end of the program. “President Trump today accused Democrats of failing to prevent the attack on the Capitol,” Dokoupil said, “while House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the President of ‘whitewashing it.’ ” He closed the show with a lighthearted segment about Marco Rubio memes.
On “ABC World News Tonight,” which has about twice as many viewers as “CBS Evening News,” David Muir devoted an entire segment to pro-Trump marches marking the anniversary in Washington and the White House’s début of a website celebrating Trump’s blanket pardons of rioters. A few nights later, at the Golden Globes, the comedian Nikki Glaser mocked CBS in her monologue. “And the award for Most Editing goes to CBS News,” she said. “Yes, CBS News, America’s newest place to see B.S. news.” Ellison was seated in the audience.
With Weiss’s help, Dokoupil has booked interviews with powerful figures in Trump’s orbit, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. Last week, in Dearborn, Michigan, he did a twelve-minute standup with Trump on a Ford factory floor. Dokoupil asked about the potential for U.S. intervention in Iran; the criminal probe of Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair; and the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. (When Dokoupil mentioned that Good’s father was a Trump supporter, the President said, “And I think that’s great.”)
At one point, when the conversation turned to rising grocery prices, Trump told Dokoupil that, if Kamala Harris had won the last election, “your boss”—referring to Ellison—“who’s an amazing guy, might be bust.” Trump added, “You wouldn’t have this job, certainly whatever the hell they’re paying you.” Dokoupil, whose wife, the MS NOW anchor Katy Tur, has also been a target of Trump’s jabs, pushed back at the close of the interview. “For the record, I do think I’d have this job even if the other guys won,” Dokoupil said.
“Yeah,” Trump shot back, “but at a lesser salary.” ♦
