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- [00:00]
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- [02:18]
Sarah Gibson Tuttle / Executive Producer Isaac Saul
From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle Foreign.
- [02:33]
Isaac Saul
Good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of my take. I'm your host Isaac Saul. It is Monday, December 29th. We are back after Christmas break and today we are covering the 60 Minutes controversy, the Seacot story that got pulled by the new CBS News editor in chief, Barry Weiss. We're going to talk about exactly what happened, share some views from the left and the right. And then today you're going to get my take. A quick reminder, we're off the last few days. We have a podcast today and tomorrow, and then we're taking another break for the New year, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. We'll be back next Monday with regular editions after we publish tomorrow's podcast. But we are going to release some content right here on the podcast for you guys that is fresh off the press. We have a few interviews that we've recorded and edited that have been a little bit in the backlog for us. And we're going to unload the catalog during this New Year's break. So keep an ear out on the feed. We're going to have a couple really interesting interviews popping up from Ari and Will, which I'm super excited to listen to because I've edited and listened to some parts of them, but I haven't gotten the full thing on either. So I'll be a consumer just like you guys. With that, I'm going to send it over to Will, who is breaking down today's main story, and I'll be back for my take.
- [04:09]
Will K. Back
Thanks, Isaac. All right, let's jump into today's quick hits. Number one, President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met at Trump's Mar A Lago residence on Sunday. Both leaders described the talks positively, but said further negotiations were needed to finalize a peace plan to end the Russia Ukraine war. And prior to the meeting, Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone and he told reporters that the Russian leader, quote, wants Ukraine to succeed. Number two, the man charged with planting pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic National Committees the night before the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots confessed to investigators, according to a court filing. The man reportedly said that he wanted to, quote, speak up for those who believed the 2020 election was stolen and expressed displeasure with both parties, but claimed he was not trying to prevent lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden's election victory. Number three, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel said he was allocating additional agency resources to investigate fraud in Minnesota, where members of the state's Somali community have come under scrutiny for alleged social services fraud. Number four, Israel formally recognized Somaliland, an autonomous region bordering Somalia that declared independence in 1991 but has not been recognized by most other countries. Somalia, Egypt and the chairman of the African Union Commission criticized Israel's decision and rejected the recognition. And finally, number five, a bomb cyclone is expected to impact large parts of the Midwest and Northeast through Monday night, bringing high winds, blizzards, ice and rain.
- [06:06]
Jerry Insurance Ad Voice
A few hours before last night's edition of 60 Minutes, viewers learned that a segment that had been promoted would not air. The correspondent, 60 Minutes veteran Sharon Alfonsi, sent an email to CBS News colleagues saying the story is factually correct and.
- [06:22]
Sarah Gibson Tuttle / Executive Producer Isaac Saul
And accusing CBS News editor in Chief.
- [06:25]
Jerry Insurance Ad Voice
Bari Weiss of pulling it for political reasons.
- [06:29]
Will K. Back
On Sunday, December 21, CBS announced that it was pulling a scheduled 60 minute segment on the Venezuelan men deported to the Terrorism Confinement center, also known as cecot, in El Salvador. In March, CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss decided to delay the segment hours before it was set to air on the long running television show, saying that it needed additional reporting. 60 Minutes correspondent Sharon Alfonsi, who reported the segment, criticized Weiss's decision to, quote, spike the story as political in a widely reported memo to her colleagues. Shortly thereafter, the streaming app for a Canadian CBS affiliate ran a version of the segment that was shared online in the US Sparking debate about Weiss's justification for the move and broader editorial changes at CBS News. The segment focused on Seekot's treatment of Venezuelan men who the Trump administration claimed were gang members after they were transported by the United States to the prison in March. Seekot is the largest prison facility in Central America, and watchdog groups have reported that it routinely violates its prisoners human rights. The Trump administration's deportations were controversial, as they were justified under a 1798 wartime law, the Alien Enemies act, and mistakenly sent at least one person, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador. All of the Venezuelans sent to SICOT were released and returned to their home country this summer in a US Brokered prisoner exchange. Separately, in October, Paramount Skydance, the owner of cbs, named Weiss the editor in chief of CBS News, after it acquired the Free Press, a media company she founded in 2021. Weiss previously worked as an opinion editor at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, but she resigned from the latter in 2020, alleging a hostile work environment. Paramount's merger with Skydance was approved after Paramount settled a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump against 60 Minutes for $16 million over its editing of an interview with former Vice President Kamal Harris. After Weiss delayed the CCOT segment, Alphonsi criticized the decision to her colleagues, writing, quote, our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. 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. We requested responses to questions and or interviews with the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a veto. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story, end quote. Weiss said she delayed the CCOT segment after determining that the story did not feature sufficient original reporting and that reporters had not done enough to represent the Trump administration's perspective. In a memo to 60 Minute staff, Weiss wrote, if we are going to run another story about a topic that has by now been much covered, we need to advance it. Among the ways to do so, does anyone in the administration or anyone prominent who defended the use of the Alien Enemies act now regret it in light of what these Venezuelan endured at seacot? Weiss also pressed for criminal records of the deportees, quotes from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who visited the prison in March, and a legal explanation of the removals from the Trump administration. Today we'll get into views from the right and left on the controversy, followed by Executive Editor Isaac Saul's take.
- [10:17]
Isaac Saul
Foreign. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [10:31]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [10:52]
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- [10:59]
Sarah Gibson Tuttle / Executive Producer Isaac Saul
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- [12:08]
Will K. Back
Let's jump into what the right is saying. Many on the right say Weiss's decision upheld journalistic standards. Some suggest Weiss is correct to question the bias of some 60 Minutes reporters. Others argue Weiss's job is partly to pander to the Trump administration. In National Review, Noah Rothman wrote about the 60 Minute scandal that wasn't A casual survey of the social media landscape would lead neutral observers to conclude that Weiss's decision to spike the segment and is the gravest journalistic sin CBS News has ever committed. What's more, Weiss was accused of having no other motive than to shield the Trump administration, which temporarily deported more than 250 illegal migrants to that detention facility from deserved censure, rothman said. You can watch it yourself. Those who avail themselves of the opportunity might conclude that Weiss's concerns about the segment are perfectly valid. The CBS News chief chided reporters for failing to get a single quote from administration officials, even those whom the report impugned. In fact, as Axios reported, the White House, State Department and Department of Homeland Security all provided on the record comments in response to CBS News inquiries, none of which made the error, rothman wrote. That's how the editorial process works. Stories are flagged and spiked all the time. It's a common enough occurrence that it's a wonder that this story about a story ever became a story at all. In Outkick, Bobby Burek argued Bari Weiss is right to question the 60 Minute Seekot Report after a year of editorial blunders. Alfonsi is right that the lack of government participation should not be a reason to cancel a story. However, CBS News says the story was not cancelled but delayed. If and when the report airs, we can assess whether the delay resulted in a worthwhile update to the conditions at cecop, burek said. Moreover, Alfonsi and others must understand that the 60 Minute staff no longer has the same benefit of the doubt it once did. Weiss's memo suggests she felt the story was unoriginal and intended mainly to criticize the Trump administration. That would be consistent with other editorial decisions made in the past year. 60 Minutes has adopted a new standard that Blends journalism with editorial bent, a combination the brand spent decades avoiding. Examples include a favorable report on the German government's crackdown on speech, a critical essay on Trump's cabinet members that cited claims about Tulsi Gabbard being a Russian agent, a glowing segment on dei and a piece suggesting sympathy for Hamas terrorists by questioning whether hostages were starved due to a lack of resources, burak wrote. Given that track record, Weiss is right to intervene at 60 minutes and push the staff toward more original, objective reporting. In the Wall Street Journal, holman W. Jenkins Jr. Said Bari Weiss delivers for CBS's parent if she didn't know it then, she knows it now. Bari Weiss was hired at CBS News to help deliver its parent, Paramount's, hoped for acquisition of the strategically coveted Warner Bros. Movies streaming and TV empire, jenkins wrote. Notice what I'm not saying. Another editor in chief might have held back the story for all the editorial reasons Ms. Weiss has cited. She might have scuttled the report even if her parent company didn't have an interest in currying favor with Mr. Trump. But let's live in the real world. Ms. Weiss was hired by CBS only after the Ellisons launched their sales pitch to Warner's management, only after they started emphasizing their Trump ties to assure a quick and clean antitrust approval. Grownups know what they're getting into. Ms. Weiss has so far upheld what I will courteously assume was the implicit bargain that landed her the CBS job. Her editorial decisions, even if made for the purest of journalistic reasons, were intended to be factors in the Ellison family's stocking of the Warner properties, Jenkins said. The younger Mr. Ellison son, David, spent $150 million in October to acquire Ms. Weiss by acquiring her news and opinion venture, the Free Press. That sum amounts to 0.14% of the family's latest bid for Warner Bros. It will be money well spent if it helps secure their prize. Now here's what the left is the left strongly criticizes Weiss's decision as a blatant service to corporate interests. Some say the pulled segments will damage public trust in 60 minutes. Others argue Weiss's justification for delaying the piece is unconvincing. In the Atlantic, Jonathan Chait wrote, stop defending Bari Weiss. In October, Donald Trump openly boasted that Larry and David Ellison, the father son duo that now owns Paramount, CBS's parent company, are, quote, big supporters of mine and they'll do the right thing, end quote. He implied that he expected more positive coverage from CBS News and its newly appointed editor, Bari Weiss, Chait said. But conservatives are not critical of the maneuvers that place the network in the hands of businessmen who rely on Trump's favor and who are seeking the president's support in a hostile bid to edge out Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Nor are conservatives concerned about Weiss's suspicious timing in abruptly shelving a report about the president's aggressive deportations. Noah Rothman, an anti anti Trump conservative, defends Weiss in a column in National Review. The most amazing thing about Rothman's column, which echoes arguments other conservatives made on X, is that it does not mention anywhere the abuses of power, Trump's insistence of favorable coverage from media owning friends that led to Weiss running the network, chait wrote. Conservatives would never accept a left wing government using regulatory favoritism to pressure conservative media into softening their coverage of a Democratic administration. They may delight in the new editorial direction of CBS News, but they cannot defend the process that led to it. In the wrap, Michael Calderon said bari Weiss is eroding fragile trust at CBS News. Holding a story for additional reporting or comment happens in newsrooms all the time. But the circumstances surrounding Weiss's decision are anything but normal. Weiss arrived at CBS News in October with political baggage and no experience in broadcast television. This was Weiss's first major test as a network executive weighing the merits of a 60 Minutes investigative story that might inflame the president, and she bungled it, calderon wrote. Even if Weiss had legitimate journalistic concerns, as she claims, she mishandled them by allowing the piece to be widely promoted for days before abruptly pulling it Sunday evening with little explanation. Weiss may be a novice when it comes to television news, but she isn't naive about politics. She surely must have known that yanking a hard hitting story in a haphazard way would cause a firestorm and be perceived as a political gesture on behalf of Trump, who has had a tempestuous relationship with 60 Minutes, Calderon said. And holding the story would inevitably turn the spotlight on her and Trump's relationships with the Ellisons and and how CBS parent company Paramount has responded in the past to the president's demands. In the Guardian, Margaret Sullivan called Weiss's decision censorship by oligarchy. The 60 Minutes piece about the brutal conditions at an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has sent Venezuelan migrants without due process had already been thoroughly edited, fact checked and sent through the network standards desk and its legal department. The story was promoted and scheduled, and trailers for it were getting millions of views, sullivan wrote. I'm less bothered by the screw ups in this situation. For example, the segment is already all over the Internet as essentially a Canadian bootleg than I am by her apparent willingness to use her position to protect the powerful and take care of business for the oligarchy. Weiss insists that the story needs Trump administration comment before it can run, but correspondent Sharon Alfonsi has argued eloquently and persuasively that 60 Minutes repeatedly sought substantive comment and was turned down. In a memorable phrase, Alfonsi charges that if it's an acceptable reason for spiking a story, it's tantamount to giving the government a kill switch for any story they don't like. Just refuse to comment and it dies on the vine. Sullivan said it is also nonsensical of Weiss to suggest that the piece somehow lacked sufficient newsworthiness because other news organization had reported on the prison earlier. As if to counter this specious claim, a federal judge this week ordered the Trump administration to submit plans to return the migrants to the US or give them a hearing all right, that is it for what the right and left are saying. I am going to pass it back over to Isaac to read his take. Isaac over to you.
- [21:35]
Isaac Saul
All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying. Which brings us to my take. So first, I should probably start with a little bit of a brief disclosure of sorts. I know Barry Weiss in a distant, professional sense. I've never met her in person, but we've exchanged emails and direct messages on X. And this year I actually published a piece in the Free Press that she edited and worked with me on. In many ways. Before its acquisition, the Free Press was similar to Tangle, a subscription based email first independent news outlet. Everyone that I know who knows Weiss personally describes her as a thoughtful, kind and ethical boss, colleague and friend. I've had a hard time honestly finding people who've spent real time with her and also speak ill of her. And while I have criticized the Free Press for reliably promoting feature pieces that are uniformly anti progressive and pro Israel rather than offering genuine ideological gender diversity, I really do genuinely admire what she's built and I respect that she shaped and sold a successful media business that offered something unique in our news environment. In fact, my experience working with Weiss does partially inform my view on this controversy. Most relevantly, I do not think she is afraid to criticize the Trump administration. My Free Press piece was critical of Trump while defending Politico against claims that that it received improper government funds, and she pushed me to take some arguments further in that direction. The Free Press has been a frequent and effective critic of the Trump administration, and Weiss herself has long been openly critical of the president. So when news first broke of this piece being pulled, my instinct was to wait and see. Like many others, I was alarmed by 60 Minutes correspondent Sharon Alfonsi's statement, but I didn't think one reporter's account of her story getting spiked was undeniable proof of CBS currying favor with the Trump administration. I figured Weiss had her own justification, and probably a reasonable one to hold the peace. Having now fully considered Weiss's explanation, my honest opinion is that she has a few things going for her, while a few things that make her decision look pretty bad. First, she's right that news outlets across the country have covered this story relentlessly and that the story that was leaked did not really add fresh details or deepen my understanding of what has already been reported. She's right that 60 Minutes often aims to add new perspectives, new reporting, and a kind of deep investigative reveal. It's one of the premier shows in news, and pushing reporters to find that angle here to me seems reasonable. Second, she's also right to question the value provided by a two minute sequence within the segment featuring students from the University of California, Berkeley's Human Rights center, who researched the Salvadoran prison. Weiss applauded the group's work in her memo, but doubted that a group of college students researching the prison provided an authoritative enough voice to occupy two minutes of a roughly 15 minute cable news segment. I think that's fair. Likewise, I found myself wondering if such valuable time in a segment of this nature could be put to better use than showing a group of students confirming previously known facts about the prison. Third, pushing her team to get some administration officials to actually sit for an interview is reasonable. Alfonsi aptly responded that you cannot make this a requirement to publish a piece, otherwise a government body could kill a story by simply refusing to comment on it. But in Weiss's defense, she didn't require that, and she offered a few names of people like Stephen Miller who have been more than willing to comment publicly and would provide viewers with a panoramic view of the story. She even offered to personally facilitate introductions with those officials. I respect that nudge. Pushing for on camera interviews is worth the effort, even if the administration refuses it. Yet other parts of the memo look much worse for Weiss. First, and most important, is her insistence that 60 Minutes should explain the genuine dispute about the Trump administration's legal argument, and that the administration has argued in court that detainees are due judicial review. Damningly, the administration has not argued that detainees are due judicial review in fact, the administration has argued the opposite. This is a core part of the controversy Weiss seems to misunderstand. Yet one of her own reporters at CBS made abundantly clear in their segment. Indeed, Attorney General Pam Bondi submitted a guidance for implementing the Alien Enemies act that stated in clear terms an alien determined to be an alien enemy and ordered removed under the proclamation and 50 USC 21 is not entitled to judicial review of the removal order in any court of the United States. And then the administration did exactly what it said it would. It deported men to seekot without judicial review and in some cases without any due process at all. These were the fundamental issues at hand that drove months of news coverage, including here at Tangle and by the way, at the Free Press. Second are the details of how Weiss shut the story down. According to several outlets that reported on the decision, Weiss missed many of the initial screenings and only intervened at the very final stages of publication. This, simply put, is just bad management and editorial process. The story was widely promoted on CBS's social media and network shows, and it was so far along that it was already scheduled for release on a streaming app in Canada, which apparently didn't get the message to pull it. In fairness, I know what running a media company is like, and if I were asked to go be the news director of CBS while still running Tangle, I'm sure I'd miss a lot of meetings. On the other hand, that's the whole problem with the situation Weiss finds herself in, and it's probably an indication that she needs to choose one job and do it. Third and finally is CBS's broader business context. Weiss joins CBS with a very clearly stated goal to make it a network trusted by Americans across the political spectrum. But that cannot just mean winning the trust of the right. The President has publicly and privately bragged that Larry and David Ellison, CBS's new owners and the people who hired Weiss are huge supporters of his and assured Trump they would make the outlet more conservative. She is no doubt aware of the optics here and that Trump has been complaining publicly about cbs, not yet giving him the favorable coverage he deserves. Amid all this, CBS's parent company, Paramount, is competing with Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. And Trump's government could play a deciding role in the deal. Weiss should, at bare minimum, proceed with caution, knowing how any decision she makes could cause CBS to lose credibility with its existing viewers. The outcome of all those factors the fundamental story here is most concerning of all Weiss's memo unjustifiably pushed to advance a legal argument. The Trump administration isn't even making at the same time, the network is under a great deal of pressure not to upset the Trump administration. To that end, Jonathan Shade under what the left is saying is 100% correct, that the administration and CBS have not earned the benefit of the doubt. We should view this skeptically, the same way we would if a friend of a hypothetical president, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, bought Fox News and then hired an editor in chief who demanded it change its coverage of her administration. Personally, I'm skeptical that Weiss would spike a story for overtly political reasons, because I've seen how she works when nobody is watching. But the stakes of her every move are obviously different now, and adjusting CBS's primetime offerings have far more consequence than changing a few lines in a piece from me on her own independent website. If her goal was to actually limit the reach of this story, she's only done the opposite. You can watch the segment yourself, and it is worth your time. Whenever the final 60 minutes piece airs, we should watch it with a critical eye to ensure CBS is continuing to uphold its journalistic mission and and holding the administration to account. All right, that is it for my take today. We have a staff dissent which is conveniently from Will K. Back, who's reading down the main story today as well. So I'm going to pass it back to Will for his dissent and we're skipping the your questions answered today for space, but Will will finish up the pod and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace.
- [29:35]
Will K. Back
All right, Will coming back here to read my staff dissent and then we will move through the rest of the newsletter. Here's my dissent. I think Weiss made the right call to delay the peace. Yes, she seemed to misunderstand the Trump administration's legal argument on the deportations. And yes, this move looks bad against the backdrop of the Paramount Trump relationship. However, other key points made in her memo were sound. The segment left several major questions unanswered and did not meaningfully add to existing reporting on CCOT or the Trump administration's deportations. Considering this is not a time sensitive story, I see this as a perfect opportunity for 60 minutes to take additional time to cover all of its bases, especially if it results in getting Trump administration officials like Stephen Miller on the record. I agree with Isaac that pulling the piece hours before it was scheduled to air reflects a poor editorial process and Weiss should take ownership of that mistake. But with that said, I would still prefer a delayed but more comprehensive piece to an on time but limited one.
- [30:46]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [30:51]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know, one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [31:13]
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- [32:01]
Will K. Back
All right, and as a reminder, we are not answering an audience question today in order to give some more space to our main story so we can move right into today's under the radar story. According to a database maintained by C SPAN and Purdue University, the 2025 Congress produced the lowest legislative output in the first year of a new presidency. Over the past 32 years, 38 public laws were enacted this year, compared to 68 in 2021, the first year of the Biden administration, 76 in 2017, the first year of the first Trump administration, and 115 in 2009, the first year of the Obama administration. Congress has only been less productive in one year, 2023, since C span and Purdue began tracking legislative output. Additionally, the House set a 21st century record for the fewest votes cast. 362 in the first session of a two year Congress. I guess we got the big beautiful bill done. Representative David Joyce, a Republican from Ohio, said, other than that, I really can't point to much that we got accomplished. The Washington Post has this story and we'll put the link to it in today's show. Notes. All right, now here are some numbers about today's main story. The year that 60 Minutes debuted was 1968. The number of seasons of 60 Minutes that have aired is 57. The average number of viewers for 60 Minutes episodes in its 202425 season was 8.3 million per episode, according to Nielsen. Bari Weiss launched the Free Press in 2021, and the reported valuation of the Free press in Paramount Skydance's deal to acquire the outlet was $150 million. The percentage of Americans with a lot or some trust in information from national news organizations who also say they trust CBS News is 51%, and that's according to a March 2025 Pew Research survey. Conversely, the percentage of Americans who say they have not too much or no trust in information from national news organizations who say they trust CBS News is 14%. And last but not least, here is today's have a nice day story. The Maasai giraffe population has declined precipitously in recent decades, but a family at the San Diego Zoo is providing hope for the endangered species. On November 30, the zoo announced that a Maasai giraffe, Maui, had given birth to her first calf. The birth was especially notable because Maui and Chifu, the calf's father, were both born at the facility. In a statement, the zoo said these births help support the genetic diversity of Maasai giraffes and ensure their global population remains strong and healthy. UPI has this story and again the link will be in today's show Notes all right, that's it for today's edition. As a reminder, we will be back with a normal edition tomorrow and then have a few special editions the remainder of the week as well as some podcast exclusive interviews that we're really excited to share with all of you. So be on the lookout for that and we'll talk to you tomorrow. As John says, peace.
- [35:24]
Isaac Saul
Our Executive Editor and Founder is me, Isaac Saul and our Executive Producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitz, with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead Bailey Saw, Lindsay Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.
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- [37:44]
Will K. Back
Today.