"A fight over who owns the truth"

Summary

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Deadline: White House – "A Fight Over Who Owns the Truth"

Host: Nicolle Wallace (MS NOW)
Air Date: June 3, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode centers on the escalating battle over journalistic independence and the First Amendment in the U.S., using the recent upheavals at CBS and 60 Minutes—including the firing of veteran correspondent Scott Pelley—as a lens to analyze attempts at suppressing dissent, editorial independence, and truth in a politically charged media landscape.

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Episode Overview

Nicolle Wallace opens with a stark assessment: the era of "Trump 2.0" is defined by a fierce "fight over who owns the truth." The episode explores whether journalistic freedom can survive, particularly amidst the fallout at CBS and 60 Minutes, where revered journalists are being fired and editorial independence appears under siege. Through candid discussions with Don Lemon, Jim Acosta, Oliver Darcy, Michael Grinbaum, and Alex Wagner, the show captures the anxiety, anger, and resolve rippling through America's media community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The 60 Minutes Shakeup: Suppression of Truth-Telling

(00:58 – 06:48)

• Nicolle Wallace introduces the crisis at CBS, where Scott Pelley and others were fired after questioning management's apparent political bias and firing of senior staff.
• Scott Pelley's Statement [Excerpt, read by Wallace, 01:48]:

  “Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience... new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story... I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion, a heart brimming with gratitude... I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again...”

• Pelley accuses new management of demanding political bias and “unverified assertions” in news reporting and allowing politicians to select interviewers—a breach of journalistic standards.
• Other ousted correspondents, like Sharon Alfonsi, back him:

  “He was fired for asking questions, which is the job.” (Wallace quoting Alfonsi, 05:45)

• Don Lemon and Jim Acosta voice support, warning about the broader implications for the free press.

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2. Fear in Newsrooms and The Loyalty Shift

(07:45 – 14:17)

• Don Lemon discusses the deep professional and personal wounds caused by these purges, relating his own experience:

  "When something like this happens, it triggers-- there's a trigger there all over again... The trust and fidelity, at least in this situation, is toward the corporation, not necessarily towards journalism." (07:45)

• Lemon and Acosta agree the campaign isn’t about business—it’s about aligning media with an ideological, partisan project:

  "This is an ideological and partisan political project... to put together a state-dominated media system in this country and it has to be stopped." (Jim Acosta, 10:10)

• Lemon exhorts journalists to resist unethical orders:

  "If someone is giving you... something that goes against journalistic principles, I don't believe that you should follow it." (11:44) "...His [Scott Pelley's] story is our story. If we lose the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, it is over." (13:26)

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3. The Broader Assault on the Free Press

(14:17 – 17:08)

• Wallace and guests discuss the hollowing out of legacy institutions:
  • CNN, the Washington Post, and public broadcasting face hostile ownership or defunding.
  • Trump brags on social media about engineering these changes.
• Jim Acosta:

  “The information systems, the delivery system of news in this country, is under attack by the people inside the government... This is a concerted, sustained effort and they’re not stopping.” (14:51)

• Don Lemon:

  “Bari Weiss is murdering CBS News... helping to murder and end journalism and the First Amendment. She should be very aware of that...” (17:08)

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4. The Crisis of Courage in Newsrooms

(18:51 – 24:43)

• Wallace asks why more White House correspondents don’t stand up for each other:
• Jim Acosta:

  “We have a deficit of courage and honor in this country right now, and we need to get back to it... Courage can be contagious.” (21:00)

• Both Lemon and Acosta rue the lack of editorial leadership willing to defend journalistic independence, calling for an “injection of courage” within the media.

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5. Solutions and a Call to Action

(24:43 – 25:53)

• Acosta:

  “We need the candidates for president running the next time around to be talking about this issue. The free press in America is something we should all be standing up for.” (24:12)

• Lemon:

  “If you want to get the news from the ground... come to independent journalists... subscribe to us, follow us. Because we don’t have the big corporate contracts nor the bosses telling us what to do.” (24:53)

• Wallace recognizes the increasingly vital role of independent media, naming examples like Heather Cox Richardson and praising Lemon and Acosta.

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6. Reporting from the Frontlines: Fallout and Unanswered Questions

(27:20 – 31:45)

• Oliver Darcy:

  • Reports morale at CBS is at a historic low, with mass resignations possible.
  • Key figures (Leslie Stahl, Bill Whitaker) may soon leave.
  • Highlights the unprecedented allegations of management demanding bias and falsehoods from journalists.

  “You have one of the most decorated journalists... saying that CBS News brass under David Ellison’s ownership has tried to inject political bias and even falsehoods into his stories..." (29:32)

• Michael Grinbaum (NYT):

  • Details the firing of senior staff with no explanation and the challenge of rebuilding the iconic team in time for fall programming.
  • Notes the internal chaos and questions purpose:

  “...this is a program, one of the top 10 rated programs on broadcast television... and it goes back to the question of what prompted all these changes. This was the flagship of CBS News... and that’s clearly not the case here.” (31:45)

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7. Historical Parallels and The Path Forward

(34:02 – 37:44)

• Rachel Maddow draws parallels to Hungarian “oligarchic” media takeovers, echoed by Wagner, who warns that buying up independent news institutions is a tool of authoritarianism.

  “That was the playbook for Orban... oligarchs bought up the legacy institutions and shut them down, or... diminished in truth-telling and resources.” (Alex Wagner, 34:44)

• Wagner stresses hope: independent journalists in Hungary created new platforms that paved the way for change.

• The group reflects that the battle is not lost:

  “There is an alternative path by which people can still get information and analysis that is relevant and important in these times.” (Wagner, 35:55)

• Oliver Darcy underscores further consolidation motives behind Ellison’s moves, suggesting Hollywood and the wider public must get involved:

  “Everybody in Hollywood should be equally indignant. They care about free speech... I think what you need is more of a... groundswell of engagement.” (Wagner, 36:16)

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8. Modernization or Sabotage?

(39:48 – 44:27)

• Grinbaum and Wallace dissect management’s claim that these changes were about modernization:

  “Digital viewership for 60 minute segments has actually grown... so it’s not ridiculous to say, hey, let’s keep this show relevant... The issue, I think, is the execution.” (Grinbaum, 39:48)

• Wagner calls it a pretense:

  “Barry Weiss was not brought in there to modernize the enterprise; she was brought in there on a strictly partisan agenda.” (Wagner, 43:11)

• The episode concludes with agreement that the fight over truth and the free press is existential, and must be met with resolve across the public sphere.

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Notable Quotes

“The principles I hold dear are gone. And so I must leave as well.”
— Scott Pelley (read by Wallace, 02:20)

“We should all be a Scott Pelley. Scott Pelley should be an example to us. His story is our story. If we lose the First Amendment... it is over.”
— Don Lemon (13:26)

“…they are trying to put together a state-dominated media system in this country and it has to be stopped.”
— Jim Acosta (10:45)

“Bari Weiss is murdering CBS News. She’s murdering, helping to murder and end journalism and the First Amendment.”
— Don Lemon (17:08)

“Courage can be contagious. And it seems to me right now, what we need right now is an injection of courage inside these news organization because they're behind the curve.”
— Jim Acosta (21:00)

“Every journalist in this country should be a Scott Pelley and not someone’s name I can mention who is on a different network.”
— Don Lemon (18:26)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Scott Pelley’s statement and CBS crisis: 00:58–06:48
• Don Lemon & Acosta discuss trust and media loyalty: 07:45–14:17
• Expanding attack on free press & Trump's involvement: 14:17–17:08
• Why aren’t journalists standing up?: 18:51–24:43
• Role of independent journalism: 24:53–25:53
• Reporter insights (Darcy, Grinbaum): 27:20–31:45
• Historical parallels and independent media’s promise: 34:02–37:44
• Discussion: modernization vs sabotage, final thoughts: 39:48–44:27

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Conclusion

“A Fight Over Who Owns the Truth” delivers impassioned, clear-eyed analysis of a watershed moment for American journalism. The CBS/60 Minutes crisis is presented not as an isolated spat, but a flashpoint in a much larger battle over truth, democratic norms, and media independence in the face of ideological, corporate, and political pressure. The conversation is a call to action—for journalists, citizens, and the entertainment industry alike—to protect the integrity of information in the U.S before it’s irretrievably lost.

Transcript

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[Nicole Wallace]

Hi there everyone. It's 4 o' clock in New York. If Trump 2.0 can be summed up at this point by any one thing, it is the fight over who owns the truth. Whether hard questions will be allowed, whether Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Fox News, Paramount and other Trump allies and assets will be permitted to squash the truth and dissent top to bottom or current. Number two, whether the First Amendment and journalistic freedom will be allowed to survive during this administration. Yesterday, Donald Trump's allies at Paramount and CBS made it clear that their commitment to quelling dissent and knocking out some of those truth tellers is very much underway, even if they have to destroy one of that networks, one of television's most storied and valuable assets. In the process of doing that, veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley has been fired. That happened after he clashed with Bari Weiss's handpicked brand new executive producer of 60 Minutes, a guy named Nick Bilton. In a staff meeting earlier this week, they clashed after Pelly pressed Bilton about the firing of several of his colleagues and the quashing of stories that were unflattering to the Trump administration. In a statement, Scott Pelley said this quote, the waste is heartbreaking. Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. 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 correspondence 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. 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. I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion, a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again, a day when sanity, competence and courage return. According to a recording of that staff meeting in question held earlier today obtained by multiple outlets, including the New York Times, embattled CBS News editor in chief Barry Weiss said this about Scott Pelley's dismissal, quote, I'm only interested in working in a newsroom that's built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken Monday. It's an assertion Peli pushes back on, forcefully adding this in a statement, quote, bari Weiss knows what she said is not true in the meeting Tuesday in which I was effectively fired. There was no effort of any kind to find a way back. As Bari 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. Barry Weiss and president and executive editor of CBS News, Tom Zabrowski, were openly hostile from the start. Firing was raised by Tom Zabrowski in the first 15 seconds. No CBS executive at any time suggested a way back. To say so now is disingenuous, and they know it. Scott Pelley joins allegiance of other respected, dare I say revered journalists who have been silenced, reprimanded or fired for doing what journalists do, asking hard questions, many of whom have now spoken up on his behalf, including his former colleague Sharon Alfonsi, who was also fired from 60 Minutes. She writes this, quote, he was fired for asking questions, which is the job. If you need one sentence that tells you exactly what CBS News has become under Bari Weiss, that is it. Journalists who ask questions are being systematically replaced by people who won't, and that's not a side effect of what's happening at 60 minutes, it's the goal. CNN anchor Don Lemon, who was arrested and has faced federal civil rights charges after filming anti ice protests in Minnesota, posted this video on social media.

[Don Lemon]

Scott Pelley is not wrong. He is telling the truth. So if the management of CBS's goals are to ru the news franchise and to put 60 minutes out of business or for it to lose their credibility, they're doing a very good job at it.

[Nicole Wallace]

Former CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta, who frequently clashed with Donald Trump, posted this warning watch that what the Ellisons

[Jim Acosta]

and Bari Weiss are doing to CBS is unconscionable. It's unforgivable. And as I've said many times, when 60 Minutes is in trouble, we are all in trou. And we are

[Nicole Wallace]

those five alarm warnings about the current fight over the First Amendment and journalistic freedom and truth and just how much we all stand to lose if this fight is lost is where we start today. I want to bring in those two now. Independent journalist, longtime CNN correspondent and anchor Jim Acosta, who now hosts the Jim Acosta show on Substack, is here. And joining me at the table, Don Lemon, also a longtime CNN anchor. He's now the host of the Don Lemon show, which he streams live twice a Day on YouTube. He's also written about his experience leaving network news in his book I Once Was Lost, which is fantastic. I must read. I have to say I'm nervous. I'm such a fan of both of yours. I never miss anything either of you say. And in this moment, I turned to what I went looking for, what you both had to say when this news broke. And I wonder if you can just speak out about what the new sort of where the new trust paradigm is in journalism.

[Don Lemon]

Well, I must say that when something like this happens, it triggers, there's a trigger there all over again. When I write about in the book the day it happened to me, because as you were reading Scott Pelley's story, it's so similar to my story. And so I would imagine even people who didn't end up having to leave a network or pushed out or whatever it is, just journalists in general are triggered by this, producers, writers, and I think about all the people who are over at CBS now who are still fighting the good fight. There are hundreds of them over there and they are committed to making 60 Minutes continue to be the the news program that it is and that it deserves to be. However, I hate to be a fatalist, but I think it's a fait accompli. I don't think that the management of CBS cares at this point. So where's the trust? Where's the fidelity? I think the trust and the fidelity, at least in this situation and many others and some maybe in my own, it's toward the corporation, not necessarily towards a journalist or journalism. I think that pushing a news organization in a certain political, ideological direction is anathema to journalists, to true journalists. It may be good, they think, for the corporation. It's not. It never works. It never works. If you say, we think your network is liberal, so we need to move it to the right, you're not gonna get that. People who watch Fox News are not gonna tune into MSNBC or CNN the way that they tune into Fox News. It's just never going to happen. And then you lose your core audience and then where are you? The ratings are actually worse.

[Nicole Wallace]

The thing about blowing up 60 minutes, so for no reason other than it would appear, this political project, 9% growth,

[Don Lemon]

that's unheard of in this day.

[Nicole Wallace]

And a digital, a digital supernova.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah. Why are you. You should be protecting that in a glass box. Now, if they want to touch something, then they should go and try to fix the CBS Evening News or perhaps fix the CBS mornings. But 60 Minutes is the tent pole, and right now they're chipping away that tent pole and the tent is sagging.

[Nicole Wallace]

Jim, I want to ask you. I mean, Scott Pelley went into a meeting and did what I think most journalists are hardwired to do. Sort of protected his team members on the field. Right. Stuck up for Sharon Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega and two producers who have been fired, one of whom he asserts had to go to HR to be fired. What do you think the message is that they're clearly trying to send?

[Jim Acosta]

I think the message that the people at CBS are sending, people like Barry Weiss is be afraid. We are in control. We are in charge. And as Don was saying, make no mistake, they don't care about the ratings. They don't care about making money. This is an ideological and partisan political project on the part of the Ellisons, the Trump friendly Ellisons, who now control Paramount, who, by the way, are trying to take control of WBD and CNN and turn it into this giant media conglomerate that will essentially act like a state media organization in support of Donald Trump. And I think the folks at cbs, people like Barry Weiss and so on, they need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves the question, is what I'm doing good for America? Is what I'm doing good for democracy? Is what I'm doing good for the free press? And I think the answer is unquestionably no. And when Scott Pelley. Scott Pelley is saying that the people at CBS are telling him to inject political bias and falsehoods into his reporting, that should be a hair on fire moment for all Americans. And Don and I, we have felt these pressures. And you know, this is a very serious moment in this country right now. The American people need to be aware of what's taking place. Donald Trump, he's gone after Stephen Colbert, he's trying to go after Jimmy Kimmel. They are trying to, to put together a state dominated media system in this country and it has to be stopped.

[Don Lemon]

The irony in all this is, Jim, that I mentioned, I forgot Barry Weiss, she, she owned it, you know, a journalistic outlet, Free press. Right. And when you think about what is that, the irony in that. But look, I think that Jim is right in this moment. This is a very dangerous moment. And not only do I feel that the folks who are in charge, the management, the people in the C suites, the owners, it's their fault, but I also think that it's. I think Scott Paley is an example to all journalists. And if you are in that position, in a way, you know, if I was still there, I might feel a bit embarrassed that I have not that I had not stood up. And I understand that people have obligations. You know, you got mortgages, you got all of those things. But I look at journalism in a very similar way as I do an attorney, do no harm, a doctor, do no harm. And you take an oath. And if someone is giving you, not necessarily in a legal order, it's something that goes against journalistic principles, I don't believe that you should follow it.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah.

[Don Lemon]

And that's what's happening in this moment. And it's, you know, the people who are standing up are the people who have the least power. I believe in this moment, maybe in an odd way, we have a power that we don't really understand. But a lot of our corporate friends are not standing up. And here you have Jim Acosta and me and others who are in independent media and we are fighting the fight without the big corporation, without the big attorneys, without all the money that goes along with it. We're out here in these independent streets fighting it. And, you know, people who have much more agency and influence in this are not standing up. So journalists stand up. If you're in a position and they're telling you to do something that like Scott Pelley, Said they were telling him

[Nicole Wallace]

to do, to insert things that were done.

[Don Lemon]

Don't do it. Just and tell them. And look, I think when I left, I was disappointed that the people who did not come to my defense, there were many and they were told that they couldn't. That's what I've heard from, from folks that they were told that they couldn't. But I think people in this moment need to stand up for Scott Pelley. I think people need to be a Scott Pelley instead of, you know, one of those people, one of those lackeys who go on television every day or every night and just lie and stand up for Donald Trump even when he's wrong. We should all be a Scott Pelley. Scott Pelley should be an example to us. We should all support him. His story is our story. If we lose the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, it is over. This whole experiment that we have towards a more perfect union is over. It is. The First Amendment is the bedrock of our Constitution and without it, nothing else stands.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, Jim, I feel like it's important to point out that they've made a lot of progress toward destroying the free press. I mean, CNN is now potentially going to be under the same management as cbs. Fox News is watching their right flank, not watching anything from mainstream truth centered journalism. You've got the Washington Post being hollowed out under Jeff Bezos. I mean, they've made extraordinary. Perhaps the only place they've made as much progress is at the Department of Justice, which has been hollowed out just as quickly.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, there's no question about it. I mean, we already have one Fox in this country. Do we need two? I don't think we need two, but they're on, they're on the verge of creating a second Fox News in this country. And you're absolutely right. And what Don was saying a few moments ago is absolutely right. The free press is in danger in this country right now. And you know, there are a lot of journalists who can do something about it and a lot of corporate executives who can do something about it. I mean, look at the truth social post that Donald Trump put out earlier this year where he was taking credit for all of these hosts and anchors that he had booted from their jobs. I thought all those things were programming decisions. That's how it was described in the press. The executives at these companies said these are just programming decisions. What are you talking about? Donald Trump had nothing to do with it. But he also bragged about the new management at CBS. The new management at CNN. He bragged about the Ellisons taking over TikTok. So we need to understand what's the defunding of PBS and npr. So we need to understand what is taking place in this country right now. The information systems, the delivery system of news in this country is under attack by the people inside the government. Brendan Carr has bragged about this openly at CPAC conferences. And so this is a concerted, sustained effort and they're not stopping. This is not like, oh, Barry Weiss is incompetent. She doesn't know how to run a news division. That's not what this is at all. When the anchor of his obvious yeah. When Tony Du Couple is on the evening news at the beginning of all of this saying, we salute you, Marco Rubio and oh, by the way, there are both sides January 6th and that's happening on the CBS Evening News. I used to work at CBS many years ago. My God, what would Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer and all the legends of that company, Edward R. Murrow, what would they think of that? They would be absolutely appalled. And so Bari Weiss, you know, she needs to understand, she may think she's hot stuff right now after creating the free press and everything. She is being used by the far right right now to destroy a storied news organization and to quote, unquote, murder the nation's most important news magazine. And if I were her, I would slow my roll because this is not going to a good place. It seems to me history is not

[Don Lemon]

going to look fondly on the person, a person who destroyed the most storied news journalism magazine show anywhere, not just in America. It's not going to look fondly on that. And I'm glad you said that. Murdering. Yes, Bari Weiss is murdering CBS News. She's murdering, helping to murder and end journalism in the First Amendment. And she should be very aware of that. Especially someone who has an organization or owned a news organization called the Free Press. She needs to let the press be free. But I just don't want to in this moment. Jim, I think that you're right. This is not about whether she's competent or not. We know that she's not competent. We know that the person that they hired to run 60 minutes is not competent as a tech journalists. Why would you do that? This moment, I think is very much about the guts that Scott Pelley has and what he's doing in the moment. And you know, Jim knows very well I know what it's like to stand up to an organization like that to call them on their lies publicly. That takes balls to do, and we should all have that. There's one regret I only have. I don't have very many regrets, but one of the biggest regrets out of a very few is that I did not stand up for myself enough in the moment when something similar was happening to me that I could not respond in the press because it's in your contract. You can't put out a press statement. And so the fact that Scott Pelley is doing that, I think it's remarkable. And I think every journalist in this country should be lauding him, standing up for him, praising him, putting out statements. And every journalists in this country should be a Scott Pelley and not someone's name I can mention who is on a different network.

[Nicole Wallace]

Let me ask you a question, Jim Acosta, that people actually ask me on the street. They ask me, why don't the White House correspondents stick up for one another when Trump calls one of them a piggy or a terrible reporter or attacks their news organization? What's your best theory of an answer to that question?

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[Jim Acosta]

Boy, I wish he would say Quiet Piggy to me. You would definitely get a different response.

[Nicole Wallace]

Sure. And say it to me if you got a chance.

[Jim Acosta]

Oh my gosh. People feel the same way when he's calling people piggy. Where has he, has he been anywhere for like the last seven days? I haven't seen him the last.

[Don Lemon]

When he's calling people piggy, I think

[Jim Acosta]

he's, he passed this cognitive test. That's the last thing I heard. But he knew which one. So he says, and if there's a moment that calls for investigative journalism right now, it's now. And they just announced Bill Pulte as the head of the Director of National Intelligence. I mean, if there's a moment that calls for investigative journalism, it's now. But to your, your question, Nicole. So I don't do the thing that us TV people do, which is not answer the question. No, I mean, to me, you know, there are a lot of people who are very hooked on these cushy gigs that they get in Washington, D.C. and they don't want to, you know, ruffle any feathers and jeopardize that. But at the same time, you know, we've got a lot of good people in this business. When, when Trump came after me and called me the enemy of the people, Peter Alexander, the wonderful Peter Alexander, stood up for me in that moment. We need more moments like that. And part of the reason why it doesn't happen, Nicole, is because you have a lot of bosses in this business. And I may not be ingratiating myself with the TV bosses these days, but you have a lot of bosses who will put pressure on their employees to not do that, to not get involved, to not stand up for their colleagues. And when I worked at cnn, you know, Jeff Zucker, you know, he was in my corner 100%. And if something like that were to go down and I were to step in and say what needs to be said, he would call me afterwards and say, that's the way to do it. Way to go, Jim. And we just don't have bosses like that anymore. We have a deficit of courage and honor in this country right now, and we need to get back to it. I don't understand what these television executives are doing right now. They're behind the curve. The American people have just have decided they don't want cage matches in the backyard of the White House. They don't want this country to get turned into an authoritarian nightmare. And the news executives are acting as though, you know, we just placate Donald Trump will get through this. The storm will pass. It's sort of like what the Republicans say to each other up on Capitol Hill. The storm will pass. Well, tell that to some of these guys who just got primaried. Tell that to John Cornyn. Tell that to some of these guys who aren't going to be sticking around Washington anymore. There is a price to be paid for cowardice. And I think courage can be contagious. And it seems to me right now, what we need right now is an injection of courage inside these news organization because they're behind the curve. The American people are way ahead of where this industry is right now.

[Don Lemon]

I think that that injection of courage is Scott Pelley, and that's the, that's the, that's the courage that we should all try to emulate. Jim, you're 100% right about what the American people want and don't want. They don't want cage matches on the lawn of the White House. They don't want cage matches on television where people are sitting around fighting, where you're booking people just so they can argue the spectacle of it. We went through that in the, that's the 90s, right? We went through that with late night shows and not even Crossfire, but I forget his name, the guy who. And then with Geraldo, Jerry and all that, we went through that. It's not constructed. And so in this moment, I think Jim is right. We need some courage and we need people who are sitting in those C suites, who are those news managers who are not just looking out to. I tell you, when you ask me, you don't know what they're doing. I know what they're doing. They're hanging on for dear life in this moment because where else, what else do they have? And many of those people have made as much more money than they could ever spend in their lives. And it's time to like, stand up and say, okay, enough is enough, I've made enough money. I can retire or you can buy out my contract, but I'm going off.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, here's the other thing. It'll be over in two and a half years. And the bet that it's always going to be good business to be behind a guy at 32% trying to push the country into an autocracy feels like a stupid business bet, too.

[Don Lemon]

Well, that's where Jim is, right? Because what do you want to bet Jim and Nicole, in two and a half years, if Donald Trump is out of the White House and all of a sudden it shifts to the Democrats, those very same people who run those companies are going to be moving to the left, right? Because they want to go where the power is and they want to go where the money is. And then what are you left to do if you didn't stand up? What do you, you know, what are people.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, and what is the consumer going to think you stand for? You stand for nothing by that point in the eyes of the consumer?

[Jim Acosta]

Well, that's if, and I don't want to get you in any TV trouble with the clock or anything before, but

[Nicole Wallace]

that's if things are in so much trouble already.

[Jim Acosta]

This is the bargain you made. But I will just very quickly, if I may just put one little thing on my soapbox before I go, and that is we need the candidates for president running the next time around to be talking about this issue. The free press in America is something that we should all be standing up for. And the sanctity of our airwaves, you know, that is something that is worth defending. And it just seems to me it's, I would love to see the candidates debating this, how we get back to having a really solid information and news system in this country because it's being broken to pieces right now.

[Don Lemon]

I know you gotta go to break.

[Nicole Wallace]

No, but on that point, I mean, conservatives used to say they cared about that. I think Ted Cruz used to and Tucker Carlson used to be really into that. Not so much.

[Don Lemon]

10 seconds for my soapbox. And this is very self serving for both Jim Acosta and me. If you want to get the independent journalist. No, Chad, if you want to get the news from the ground, I believe come to independent journalists, go to YouTube or to substack or to wherever we are and sign up, subscribe to us, follow us. Because we don't have the big corporate contracts nor do we have the big corporate bosses telling us what to do.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, I've said this privately. I don't know if I've said on tv. I mean, I feel like I am being pushed editorially by you guys. I mean, I now feel like the competition isn't just my talented peers on cable news, but the brilliant journalists who are in independent media. Folks like both of you, folks like Heather Cox, Richardson and Caris, you know, people that are really telling the truth.

[Don Lemon]

Jim McCosmon, Don Lennox, 10am Eastern Time, 5pm 5 days A on the YouTube the Don Levitt show at. Jim Acosta has a Jim Acosta show we watch.

[Nicole Wallace]

Will you guys come back?

[Don Lemon]

Of course.

[Nicole Wallace]

Might get us out of trouble for all the breaks we missed. When you guys come back, we have to bring some paper, something. Yes, it's an honor. Thank you guys so much. Jim Acosta.

[Don Lemon]

Thank you, Nicole, so much. Pleasure. Good to see you, Jim. We'll talk soon.

[Jim Acosta]

Good to see you. Done.

[Nicole Wallace]

When we come back, we'll take a lot of commercials. I'm just kidding. We'll bring in one of the reporters we've turned to on this story specifically. And it snowballed over the week. Oliver Darcy on the likelihood that there are more shoes to drop. Also ahead, Donald Trump's broad assault on the media and the First Amendment has hit more than just 60 minutes. We'll look at the full picture, the composite of Trump's attacks on media companies and their corporate ownership. And later in the broadcast, the Supreme Court upholding controversial congressional map in Alabama that will essentially leave zero federal protections for black voters. We'll look at how this blow to democracy and voting rights goes way beyond Alabama. We'll have all those stories and more when deadline. White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

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[Michael Grinbaum]

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[Nicole Wallace]

I want to bring into our coverage New York Times media correspondent Michael Grimbaum. Also back with us, Oliver Darcy. He has been covering this story for viewers of this program and for his newsletter status. And joining me at the table, senior political analyst, host of the Runaway country podcast, author of the substack, how the hell with Alex Wagner. Alex Wagner is here. Oliver Darcy, let me start with you since you've brought our audience so many of these developments. Tell me what is happening today and what you're watching for to happen next.

[Oliver Darcy]

Well, there's real blowback inside CBS News to Editor in Chief Bari Weiss after she fired Scott Pelley. I am told by a number of people, I think I've lost track that people inside CBS News are repulsed, they're disgusted with her, that morale has plunged to ratings that no one can even remember or not ratings morale is plunged to a, you know, so far down below that no one, no one can remember. It's horrible inside CBS News and people are fearful that it's not finished yet, that the last shoe has not dropped. There are real conversations happening, I'm told, behind the scenes at 60 Minutes. Amongst, you know, the top correspondents left, Leslie Stahl, Bill Whitaker, John Wortham, are they going to stay on the show? And I was told yesterday before Scott Pelley was fired that if Scott Pelley were to leave, at least Bill Whitaker was likely to be out the door. He has privately confided in people that, you know, he was not probably likely to stick around if senior leadership was shown the door. Obviously, Barry Weiss fired the executive producer, Tanya Simon. She fired the executive editor. She fired a number of other senior staffers in addition to those correspondents. And so I think the real question looking forward now, and this is a fast moving story, is, is Leslie Stahl, is she going to stay? Is Bill Whitaker going to stay and is John Wortham going to stay? And if those correspondents leave, what? There's really nothing left at that point of 60 minutes.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, I want to deal with what we've learned since you and I last talked 24 hours ago. And it is Scott Pelley's assertion that he was asked to inject things into stories. What do we know about that?

[Oliver Darcy]

That was a remarkable assertion. And I think it's actually maybe getting lost a little bit in the fact that he was fired. But you have one of the most decorated journalists, you know, in the country saying that CBS News brass under David Ellison's ownership has tried to inject political bias and even falsehoods into his stories and that he has, he successfully, successfully fought them off. But that that's happening inside 60 minutes, which is, again, the crown jewel of American journalism. That is a remarkable statement to make. I'm curious how CBS News ultimately responds to that. But it's not just him saying it either. Nicole, you know, Sharon Alfonsi, she said back in December that she believed her seekant story was held by Barry Weiss for political reasons. You have Cecilia Vega, another correspondent. Yes, she was fired, but she said that this is an attempt to sanitize factual reporting. And so it's unprecedented, I think, that you have these revered journalists who worked at CBS News, many, many for a long time, like Scott Pelley. He was basically the face of CBS News coming out now and saying that new ownership is no longer abiding by traditional journalism ethics and is trying to steer this ship overtly in a, I assume, pro Trump direction.

[Nicole Wallace]

Michael Grimbaum, the New York Times has had remarkable reporting on this story as well. Let me read a little bit more from Scott Pelley's statement on the meeting with Bari Weiss and Tom Zabrowski. Scott Pelley says, I asked Weiss a number of questions about why she fired the entire senior staff of 60 minutes a few days before and without cause. Quote, I'm not answering that question, she said. I asked why she didn't come to 60 Minutes offices to explain her actions. Quote, I'm not answering that question, she said. I asked, why did she fire 60 Minutes executive producer Tania Simon? Quote, I'm not answering that question. Why did you fire correspondent Cecilia Vega? Quote, I'm not answering that question. Why did you fire correspondent Sharon Alfonsi? Quote, I'm not answering that question. And somehow in the rewriting of history, Scott Pelley is rude. Please explain the audacity of their response to Scott Pelley.

[Michael Grinbaum]

Well, the CBS leadership maintains that they approach that meeting wanting to find a way forward with Peli. And I've actually been told that Weiss and Peli, their relationship had defrosted a bit maybe a month or two ago, especially after he did a compelling segment, an interview with Ben Sasse. But clearly something changed dramatically And I believe the what instigated it was this wholesale firing of the 60 Minutes leadership team. I think Peli was enraged by that and, you know, he wasn't willing to brook those changes and let it go. I think that what's really interesting to me here is that this is a program, one of the top 10 rated programs, programs on broadcast television, by far the highest watched news program in the country that has to get a new season together in September. And by the way, there's a long lead time on 60 minute segments. These aren't videos that you can turn around in a day or two. So Barry Weiss and Nick Bilton, the new executive producer, will now have to marshal a demoralized staff. We don't actually know how many correspondents will be remaining there by the end of this week and try to put together a show that, you know, 10, 11 million viewers a week are expecting to see at a very high quality. And it goes back to the question of what prompted all these changes. This was the flagship of CBS News, a show that was easily its most successful franchise. You know, there's been talk about why she changed the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News, the 6:30 show. Well, it's third ranked. The Morning show is third ranked against ABC and CB, NBC. So, you know, experimentation makes sense. 60 Minutes, many people thought was going to be left alone because of its success. And that's clearly not the case here. And it's going to be a week by week verdict on Weiss's moves.

[Nicole Wallace]

We just had a picture up of the 60 Minute staff. Half of the people in the picture are gone. I have to say, get a break. I'm desperate to bring Alex Wagner and we will do that. On the other side also had much more on the very clear and undeniable damage Trump has done to the biggest of the biggest in terms of a vibrant free press. That's next.

[Rachel Maddow]

I made a crack there talking about the Scott Pelney News as being sort of Hungarian oligarchic style takeover in the media. And I mean that sort of as a joke, but also sort of deadly serious. I mean the there is nobody who is more acutely attuned to the value of a free press than those who are trying to take it away. And when the president baldly says I am going to use the power of the state in order to get the media that I want and he lines up oligarchic friends in order to do that for him, it's just again, there's no pretense, there's no Saying this is for any other reason.

[Nicole Wallace]

You were there, you were on the ground. I thought of your reporting when I heard Rachel say that from Hungary.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah. I mean, that is the playbook for. That was the playbook for Orban. Sometimes. It wasn't that the state was always shutting down media outlets. It was the oligarchs that were friends with Orban, bought up the legacy institutions and shut them down, or they were put into sort of collectives that were then basically diminished in truth telling and resources and everything and basically atrophied the entire system of the fourth estate in Hungary. But. But the people that used to be working at these places, the people with integrity.

[Nicole Wallace]

Scott Pelis.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah, the Scott Pelis of Hungary went on to create really important independent media outlets that in turn gave some of the first platforms to Peter Magyar, the guy who would go on to defeat Viktor Orban and who, you know, was inaugurated last month and represents an entirely massive shift in terms of Hungary's fortunes and its future. So, I mean, the playbook has not been written. It is not over here in the United States. There are certainly lots of legacy institutions that have independence and credibility, but there is an alternative path by which people can still get information and analysis that is relevant and important in these times.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, the other piece of it is that a brand that is so, you know, the way that the sort of manosphere podcasts rise is they feel a little more subversive than the evening news and sort of the history of pirate radio. Right. Is that it was, it was more subversive. I mean, just the brand of giant clunky corporate media is such a dud.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah, well, I mean, listen, I think what the CBS saga does is hasten the melting of the iceberg that is broadcast news. I don't know that you ever get that audience back, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't still fight for it. Right. I mean, and I do think. I was listening to Don and I was listening to Jim. I think that the Ellisons, yes, while they are part of a partisan project, are still business people. They don't really care what happens to the news division as long as their merger with Warner Brothers goes through. They wanna curry favor with the Trump administration cuz they wanna get their paws on the archives at Paramount and Warner Brothers. So like we've enlisted the news media in indignation about what's happening at cbs, but everybody in Hollywood should be equally indignant. They care about free speech. Every actor and director and producer that has deals with Paramount, Warner Brothers and the parent company should be out there saying, wait a second, what you're doing to freedom and speech in this country is not okay. We stand with Scott Pelley. I mean, I think what you need is more of a sort of groundswell of engagement across not just politics and media, but also entertainment. That's how you change things with people like the Ellisons.

[Nicole Wallace]

So country's done this once before in the second Trump term. Oliver, they did it around Jimmy Kimmel because it was so flagrant. Right. He said something they didn't like. They pressured abc. ABC took him off the air. People went to the streets. He thanked them in his Peabody acceptance speech last weekend, and they put him back. Is Pelly shaping up to be the kind of example that connects with the American people?

[Oliver Darcy]

I'm not sure. I mean, I haven't seen any campaigns for people to cancel their Paramount plus memberships yet. But I'm not sure that, you know, back to Alex's point, I don't know if anything matters to the Ellisons right now other than getting Warner Brothers discovery in their fold. And they are close to getting this deal done. I reported that they are targeting next month, July 15, as closing this deal. And so they are. They are doing everything they can to ingratiate themselves with the Trump administration. I think they will figure out everything else after this deal gets closed, but that's what they really want. And to Alex's point, too, I do think that the Ellisons, it doesn't seem like David Ellison cares much about breaking CBS news, but he certainly does want to be a Hollywood mogul. And if you had a list stars speaking out about what's happening at 60 Minutes, I think that would certainly get on his radar. I have not really seen a lot of that yet. And I think that part of the reason is because he's about to become one of the most important people in Hollywood, if not the most important person in Hollywood that there is. He's going to be greenlighting all their movies and all their TV shows. And so you have a consolidation issue as well.

[Nicole Wallace]

Oliver Darcy, we can see that you are at an airport trying to catch a flight. We're going to make sure you don't miss that. We would be mortified if you missed it because you're talking to us. So please run, Michael. Alex, please stay with us. Much more on the other side of a very short break. Don't go anywhere. We're back with Michael and Alex. Michael, let me read this from your reporting. Today on this story, Barry Weiss, an opinion journalist with little television experience was appointed last year by David Ellison, a text guy who purchased CBS's parent company, Paramount. She said she wants to modernize CBS News so it can remain competitive in an era of Digital Media. Didn't 60 Minutes do that for Bari Weiss? Like, didn't Bari Weiss just literally cut the guts out of the thing inside the thing she's now in charge of that did the thing she said she wanted to do and that she hired Nick Bilton to do for her.

[Michael Grinbaum]

So my colleague Jim Rudenberg, who is probably the goat of media reporters, reminded me that the question of whether 60 Minutes is becoming obsolete has really, really been kicking around for, for many years. And, and some people might remember There was a 60 Minutes 2 that was actually introduced a second show each week that, that was sort of short lived. So there's, there's been a sort of discussion for a while about, well, how does we take this show that is fundamentally an hour a week on broadcast television and keep it relevant in the ages of podcasts and TikTok and all those wonderful newfangled media products we all know and love. So that's a legitimate mission. I think what's notable though is that the Digital viewership for 60 minute segments has actually grown quite a bit over the last few years. Its viewership on television was up 9% this season from the year before. So it's not, certainly it's not ridiculous for a new head of the news division to say, hey, let's make sure that this show remains relevant, that we get viewers to come watch a product that we really believe in. And I think that's what Barry Wise was trying to argue. The issue, I think, is the execution.

[Nicole Wallace]

Do you buy that though? Because my, my sense, Michael Grimbaum, and you know more about this than me, is that the arguments around how do you modernize it are around how do you spread it around? How do you take this? Incredibly, it is the only newscast with live sports. Like audience size. I mean, you know more about TV ratings than I do, but it has an audience size the size of which you don't even talk about. Like, it's, it's in there with the top rated things. The other things are all sporting events. So it is a thing that's not like any of the other news things. So my understanding is the ideas to modernize it, the 60 minutes too was about having more of it, not about killing or quote, murdering what you already had.

[Michael Grinbaum]

Well, I want to talk about the execution, no pun intended, of how Weiss has been carrying this out to Bring in Nick Bilton, who is a tech journalist, has never worked in broadcast tv, really has scant experience as a filmmaker. That really. And then to fire Tanya Simon, who had been at the show for 30 years and had really shepherded it through a pretty chaotic period over the last 12 months. That's what landed with such intensity with the show's staff. It felt like such a rebuke to the work that they've done. It felt like an outsider who knew very little about the medium was bringing. It was brought in to give orders to people like Scott Peli, who's been there for 30, 35 years. Now the contention from CBS is that Peli was acting pompous, that he was acting bratty. I think that a lot of the staff was very upset at the idea that, you know, their expertise was dismissed in. In the notion of this hiring pompous

[Nicole Wallace]

and bratty will be the subject of Alex Wagner's next question. It'll happen on the other side of a break. Don't go anywhere. Alex. In choosing to spend the hour on this story, I sort of was gut checking myself, why does this matter? And I think it matters because I think people ultimately benefit when everyone delivering the news has to fight for the audience. And you fight and you win them over by being trusted, by being truthful, and by being compelling. And 60 Minutes was all those things.

[Alex Wagner]

Oh, my God, yes. I used to work at CBS, and

[Nicole Wallace]

we would look across the street, the

[Alex Wagner]

60 Minutes offices, like, one day maybe, you know, I mean, it is a legendary Internet institution because of the integrity and because of the rigor with which they've all conducted themselves. And, you know, Barry Weiss was not brought in there to modernize the enterprise. She was brought in there on a strictly partisan agenda. On one of her first meetings with the 60 Minute staff, she asked them, why does everyone think you're so biased? And all of her decision making has flowed from that. Whether it's letting Benjamin Netanyahu pick the interviewer that was going to sit down with him for 60 minutes, whether it was sifling or censoring article pieces on CCOT, there are a litany of choices that have been made, both publicly and privately, that show that give rise to the lie, that reveal the lie, that this is about modernization, this is about redirecting the course of news coverage at one of the most legendary institutions in American media. And as such, we, as citizens of a democracy that flourishes on free speech, that is founded in large part on the First Amendment, need to stand up and say, this is not okay. And I really mean it. Like, it needs to come from all corners of society to be heard in the way that it needs.

[Nicole Wallace]

And it used to. I mean, there used to be prominent conservatives who would speak out and say, I don't agree. But the First Amendment's First Amendment, where

[Alex Wagner]

are the, where are the all those snowflakes in the conservative movement who can't handle being yelled at by people in meetings? Okay, see you now.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, exactly. Thank you for being here today, my friend. Thank you for doing this. Michael Grimbaum, thank you for your reporting on this story and for joining us today. To talk about it after the break, a Supreme Court justice calling out the entire court for the allowing a state to discriminate against every black resident who lives there. We'll tell you about that. The next hour of Deadline White House starts after a very short break.

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