← The Jim Acosta Show
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign Acosta show. And it's another day that ends in y in the era of corporate media bending the knee to Donald Trump. The latest example, the obliteration of 60 Minutes at CBS News. One of the stars of 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley, was just fired by CBS after he accused the network's editor in chief, Barry Weiss, of murdering the program. Let's discuss with my pal, former MSNBC anchor and legal analyst Katie Fang of the Katie Fang Show. She's everywhere. Katie, great to see you. My God, what is happening when Scott Pelly is getting fired at 60 Minutes?
- [00:39]
B
I just, you know, Jim, it is. I'm glad you started the show by saying it is a continuation of the capitulation, is it not? I mean, there are so many opportunities for Barry Weiss to have cemented her role at CBS by maybe acting like she believes in editorial independence. Yet. Yet we all know she was a hand pick by the Ellisons, who are billionaire buddies. I call them asshole buddies of convicted felon Donald Trump. And so what I want people to understand is Scott Pelly is, you know, a huge marquee name. And yet there are others like Sharon Alphonse, Cecilia Vega, Anderson Cooper, et cetera, right, that have now left or have been fired from, from what I've called the crown jewel of CBS News, which is 60 Minutes. So there is the total decimation of not only diversity of voices, but those that really kind of stood tall as being independent of the political pressure. And yet each and one, each and every one of them has made it clear that 60 minutes is no longer the franchise that we recognized from before. Which means to me, the death of investigative journalism in its truest of senses at mainstream media now that 60 Minutes no longer has Scott Pelley.
- [01:58]
A
No, you're absolutely right. And Bari Weiss is trying to defend herself. I'm calling it Barry Week Tea. This is how the New York Times described it. Barry Weiss told her newsroom on Wednesday morning that the network fired Scott Pelley because a, quote, foundation of trust had been broken after he assailed CBS leadership. And she said, I'm only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it. I mean, Katie, how can she get off talking about mutual respect when she's the one who went after Sharon Alfonsi's reporting on seacot. You know, she's the one who has been going through 60 minutes like a bull in a china shop. And, you know, it's, it seems to me with her respect is a one way street and you know, she wasn't respecting the work of the journalists at 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley first among them.
- [02:48]
B
So Cecilia Vega said it so well when she spoke about the censorship being from the top down and being self censorship. Right. And both she and Sharon Alfonsi have not spared the rod nor has Scott Pelley about the fact that any wall of independence has since been demolished since CBS was sold and Barry Weiss took over. And now with this addition of this Nick, whatever the guy's last name, Nick Bilton, who's the new executive producer, they are clearly setting the tone which I'm going to shelve your segment share you know Ms. Alfonsi about because I don't like the way it makes the Trump administration look. And now they want politicians to be able to pick the correspondence at 60 Minutes that are used to be able to do segments about them. I mean to me sounds like looks like and it's a duck. That is state run propaganda. When the government can control the actors, the talent, the production, the editing, the then what. What's left? There's literally nothing left for them to do. In fact, they should just subsume CBS into the comms team at the White House because that's what you are getting. Even the CBS Evening News, as you're recall, Jim, had Tony decopil saying how ha ha ha, great Marco Rubio is. I mean come on. Like we, we've made it clear here in independent media we may have a respect and a liking of people who. But we do call out people for doing wrong or if we think that what they're doing is wrong. I mean that's what we're supposed to be doing.
- [04:20]
A
That's exactly right. And I mean this should be a wake up call to all Americans. When Scott Pelley, I mean he put out a statement after he was fired last night and this is what he said in his statement. 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.
- [04:42]
B
That's wild.
- [04:43]
A
The date in every case I've managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. I mean that is, that's stunning. To have that come out of the mouth of Scott Pelley who I think is one of the most trusted journalists in the world, is absolutely stunning. What he's saying in there is that Barry Weiss's team is meddling. They are meddling in 60 Minutes pieces for political reasons. That is nuts.
- [05:08]
B
This is that those sentences alone from Scott Pelley's statement sent a chill down my spine because he has now confirmed publicly. And that is, of course, the biggest fear that I think Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton had, that you would have somebody with that type of gravitas and credibility openly saying in public. And it also does include Sharon Alfonsi as well. Right. And Cecilia Vegas stating that, look, we're being pressured to do and say things at 60 minutes that are not meeting the journalistic integrity that we know they should. And the fact that they're saying it out loud has really said, you know what, there's no credibility Left here at 60 Minutes. And it has to be painful because both you and I left mainstream media and we had teams that we worked with, Jim, that we liked and that we respected. And there are very hard working people behind the scenes that you don't see on camera as a viewer and a consumer. And they are very talented, dedicated individuals, some of whom maybe don't have the luxury of leaving. So can you imagine that they are now stuck on a franchise that has no credibility. They're now stuck working for a network that we know is just a mouthpiece for this administration. It's hard for them, too. But I've said this, you've said this. This is the reason why we block this merger. This is the reason why allowing Paramount Skydance to get its hands on Warner Brothers, which is cnn, is truly going to be a disaster of epic proportions.
- [06:47]
A
Yeah, and I was just about to ask you about that, Katie. I mean, this underlines why this merger is so dangerous. Because, I mean, we live in the United States of America, where you and I grew up in an era where when we had decentralized media, you know, different media companies owning different, you know, media properties and so on, and you know, that that system has basically worked okay for the last 50 or so years. But Trump has cracked the code and he has learned that by putting pressure on these media companies through their mergers and acquisitions and so on, that he can affect which anchors they have, which correspondence they have, what they're doing in their newscasts to the point now where you may have a situation, as you just said, where Paramount, which owns cbs, made by Warner Brothers Discovery, or merge with Warner Brothers Discovery which owns CNN and create this conglomerate that would be an arm of the Trump administration, that would basically be doing propaganda for the Trump administration. And maybe it wouldn't go full propaganda right away, but it would certainly have the ability to pressure individual journalists inside those organizations to pull back, self censor, self edit, not go as hard after the guy. And that's exactly what Donald Trump wants, plays right into his hands.
- [07:59]
B
Yeah. And, you know, I want to connect the dots even deeper on what's happening here. So the See Caught segment, which was the Alphonse segment that got shelved courtesy of Bari Weiss. And then obviously, as we know, because there was the exposure of what happened. Big uproar. Right. If you recall that segment that showed the depravity of the conditions at seacot in El Salvador where a Kilmar Abrego Garcia was illegally deported to that really, I think, underscored why investigative journalism, when it is not censored by the government or higher ups that are responding to pressure from the government, how dangerous investigative journalism can be for this regime. Because by exposing to the public and the world the conditions of seacot, even more members of Congress, even more people in America said, what in the actual fuck is happening in this country that people can be just rounded up off the streets and under the dead of night put on planes against government court orders from judicial orders and put into terrorism facilities that are basically torture centers or, you know, maybe one step up from a concentration camp in a country over which we have no control. And then what happened? Kilmar Abrega Garcia illegally prosecuted, brought back. What a miracle. When they say you can never bring him back, he comes back, the Supreme Court of the United States rules against the Trump administration and eventually his indictment is dismissed.
- [09:31]
A
Yep.
- [09:32]
B
Because of vindictive and selective prosecution. It is amazing how powerful that Seekot segment was that in addition to having members of Congress go and visit. Right. And try to show what's happening. But Jim, we know the power of storytelling, telling. That is why our job as members of the media is so incredibly powerful. When we tell the stories of people that are suffering or people that are having hunger strikes in detention facilities, when we tell people stories about family separation, we move the needle. Which is why investigative journalism is so important. And that is the reason why they want to cut it down, they want to shut it down, and they want to make sure 60 Minutes doesn't get the platform that it had before.
- [10:18]
A
Right, exactly. I mean, and this has nothing to do with, as Barry Weiss said, having. Having respect for one another in a working environment, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bullshit. This was the plan from the get go. For the plan from the get go, from the Ellison's to Barry Weiss on down to her team, is to turn CBS News into a friend of the Trump administration. Just before the White House Correspondents Dinner earlier this year, you know, David Ellison had this event had this dinner in celebration of the First Amendment and Donald Trump, basically that was the name of the event that they had. And you know, it was like a dinner with Donald Trump and the CBS News correspondents who showed up for it. And I thought, my God, can you imagine being in the room for that? The other thing too is you mentioned seacot. We have to remind people Barry Weiss ordered that piece shelved, according to reports, because she wanted to make sure that Sharon Alfonsi was getting the voice of the Trump administration into the piece when
- [11:13]
B
it's even Miller, Jim, she wanted Stephen Miller in that piece.
- [11:16]
A
And they already tried to do that and they said, the White House said no. So you don't stop putting pieces on the air. You don't shelve a piece because the administration won't cooperate or won't give you an interview. That's not how this works. And she knows that. And so I've heard people say, oh, she's incompetent, she doesn't know what she's doing. She's inexperienced. Okay, yeah, that might be part of it. But I still call bullshit. This is a political and ideological project that they're on right now to turn parts of the news media in this country into basically propaganda and state controlled or state dominated media. And Katie, that's why this merger is so damn dangerous. What's stopping a Paramount WBD conglomerate from gobbling up NBC or ABC going after one of the other networks after that? I mean, people might say, oh, there's no way that'll happen. It could happen.
- [12:10]
B
I bet you if you had had this conversation just two years ago, Jim, about CBS being bought out by Paramount, Skydance, and now they're even the prospect of CNN doing the same, people would have thought we were crazy, right? I mean, when I grew up, I called it the holy trinity. Abc, CBS and NBC. Right? And now we've seen what happened. ABC settled a lawsuit and, and that's the other connect the dots we have to do, right? Trump initiated a lawsuit against cbs. And in wanting to resolve that lawsuit, that had to be done favorably to grease the wheels for the merger between Paramount, Skydance. Right. I mean, it's amazing how absolutely, intimately and inextricably intertwined all of this conduct and activity is. But it fits with the overarching theme of capitulation. I, I want to also let people know because this actually popped up yesterday. But it's been so crazy in the news cycle, people may not have noticed. Did you know they rescheduled the White House correspondence Dinner.
- [13:11]
A
I did see that, yes. You know, come on, come on. And they're going to have it at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in D.C. in the ballroom that used to be part of the former Trump Hotel. The Trump Hotel, before it was turned over to the Waldorf Astoria. So, I mean, this is yet another victory lap opportunity for Trump. I don't know why my friends in the press are even going along with this. Just stop it. Stop doing these things with him. This is somebody who's trampling all over the First Amendment.
- [13:40]
B
And so I will quote Sharon Alfonsi's statement where she said the wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down. Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not. And she said CBS management is abandoning its mission, choosing access journalism over accountability and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it. We have criticized, Jim, you and I, greatly, and I think justifiably, how access journalism has perverted the truth. Because this White House correspondence dinner is the perfect example of how people are more willing to pursue and protect access journalism instead of speaking truth to power. I maintain. I maintain that this rescheduling of this dinner was a colossal mistake because it is further capitulation and bending the knee of the fourth estate estate. It is further dismantling any wall of independence that should be existing between the executive branch and the fourth estate. And now it's just going to be completely gone. Why would you reschedule this dinner? There is no utility to it. The scholarships are paid for. The people are getting their money for it. Why bother doing it other than to stroke the ego of convicted felon Donald Trump.
- [15:11]
A
Yes, and. And remember, he is the guy who forced Stephen Colbert off the air. I mean, that alone right there should be enough for all of these media companies to say, you know what, Donald Trump, here's the middle finger. We are not doing any events with you. We're not gonna sit there and applaud or stand up and raise champagne glasses as you torch the free press of this country. Screw that. We're not doing that. But you can go down the line. I mean, Donald Trump put it in that infamous truth social post earlier this year where he bragged about the anchors and the hosts that he got rid of when he bragged about taking over cbs, when he bragged about CNN being bought. Next, we bragged about the Ellisons taking over TikTok. This is a. This is an ideological, political, partisan project on the part of the far right in this country. And Barry Weiss just needs to know and understand that she's being used by the far right. She may think of this as all anti woke stuff, as she calls it over at the, her organization called the Free Press, which is a, a joke.
- [16:09]
B
What a joke. Yeah.
- [16:10]
A
Give me a break. You know, Barry. And when she goes in there and she complains during a conference call, well, we, we should be working on mutual respect and trust and all that. Give me a break. I mean, that, that, I mean, how woke can you sound? I mean, she sounds pretty woke right there. And you know, to me it's like, you know, if you can't dish it, if you're going to dish it out, you got to be able to take it. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And she has to understand that if she's trying to, quote, murder CBS News or Murder 60 Minutes, there's going to be pushback from the correspondence, there's going to be pushback from the journalists who put this stuff on the air. And it doesn't sound like she can handle it.
- [16:48]
B
Well, no, and that's why when you look at people like Scott Pelley, Sharon Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega, others, right. These people are institutions in and of them, in the, in and of their own rights. I mean, these are people that have been there for decades, Jim. They have been through different administrations, they've been through different FCC chairs, they've been through different cabinets, they've been through different owners of media entities and companies. These are people that have withstood the changing in the guard. And what they have done time and time again is stand stalwart against the pressure. But it really, I think people need to understand, I've said this, I'll say it again, the pressure from above is oftentimes pretty insidiously subtle. And it's things like, watch your tone, watch your tone. It's things like, you know, do you have to call him convicted felon Donald Trump?
- [17:56]
A
Right, right, right.
- [17:57]
B
You know, things like that are, yes, incredibly, incredibly influential and can be very pressure laden for somebody who, you know, your, your trade is, you know, being on camera and speaking to the people and talking about things. So when it's presented in that way, Jim, you know, you have a lot of sympathy for the, an empathy for the courage it takes to, to have to stand up and be like, not on my watch it is not. And so when I look at the company that I am keeping, I got to be honest, I'm proud. This is not easy what we do, but I've Said, look, Scott, come on in, the water's warm, right? I mean, Terry Moran, Joy Reid, you, me, I mean, you name it. It's important for people to understand that, you know, it is kind of easy sometimes to be complacent and to stay somewhere where it, quote, unquote, is easier to be. But really, we can't do this right now. It's too important.
- [19:00]
A
Absolutely. No. And this independent media universe is expanding, and it's getting stronger every day, and it's because of folks like you, Katie, and all the folks that you mentioned. Thanks for coming on, Katie, to break this down with me. And we could go on and on, but then our heads will pop off and we'll lose our minds.
- [19:15]
B
I know we would. No, thanks for having me, my friend.
- [19:18]
A
Thanks, Katie. Artsy, good to see you. And we can't just navel gaze all day long and talk about this industry. You should talk about other things. But let's bring in my dear friend Molly Zhang fast, just in case she has some thoughts on the Scott Pelley 60 Minutes thing. And then we'll move on to some other important stuff. But, Molly, my God, this, the 60 Minutes thing, I mean, how big of a story is it in. You're in New York, you get a feel for things in New York. This has got to be, like, massive, right? This is. Is this like a tsunami? Is this bigger than Mom? Donnie? I think it has to be.
- [19:49]
C
Wow, we're really getting. Look, I think the Scott Pelley story is important because it shows the sort of an arm of the White House, right? I mean, that's really what Larry Ellison is doing, right? He's creating a media enterprise that will support his political leanings. His political leanings are Trump and Trumpism. So what would I say? I would say that I think the big problem with independent media being the answer to this is that it turns out that part of what CBS does and part of what 60 Minutes does that's so important is this investigative journalism, which you can't. Which you and I can't do. You know, you need a team. You need lawyers, you need investigators. So, like, as much as independent media is the answer to, like, the takes and to an editorial, like a, you know, the Washington Post editorial page is basically gone, as we know from that. It gets almost no views and people don't read it. And it's basically just an arm of Jeff Bezos's fantasies about free market capital. As I'm thinking, we. Those takes are fine. Being written on substack. That's totally fine. But as you and I have talked about before, like chasing people down and the legal vetting and all this stuff, you need to break a story that's more of a pro publica kind of thing. So as much as this can be, some of it can be replaced, some of it can't be. And, like, that's why it's so important that, you know, people are funding things like ProPublica and they're subscribing to the PBS.
- [21:38]
A
Yeah, right.
- [21:38]
C
And PBS, because even if you don't necessarily like the takes on the editorial page, and I write for it, so I'm not, you know, I know you may not like my views or my takes, but you. But the, the reporting is so hard to replicate and so important, and that's the thing that keeps power accountable. And you and I both know that this administration is trying to get away with a lot of stuff.
- [22:04]
A
No question about it. I mean, one of the things that they're getting. Trying to get away with right now, Molly, is whether or not Donald Trump is in good health. I mean, it's something as simple as that. You know, this is the hands and everything else, I guess. You know, he did this interview with the New York Post. I'll show a little bit of that. But Marco Rubio has been making the rounds up on Capitol Hill, and just today, he was confronted by Congressman Ted Lieu about why Donald Trump falls asleep all the time in Cabinet meetings. We should watch this because it is rather good TV that requires no investigative journalism.
- [22:41]
D
Cabinet meetings where everyone goes around the room kissing Donald Trump's ass. I'm going to ask you to come clean with American people in the White House as well. There's something wrong with Donald Trump's health or cognitive abilities. There's a reason he keeps going to the hospital and they keep giving him cognitive tests. We have not seen the president in eight days. The American people deserve the truth. I yield back.
- [23:06]
E
I don't even know how to respond to that other than to tell you that it's absurd and ridiculous. And I can't believe we're in a Foreign Affairs Committee meeting in front of the House, an important time in American foreign policy.
- [23:15]
D
Just keep lying. Just keep on.
- [23:18]
A
Yeah, Molly.
- [23:19]
E
I mean, you know, the medical expert
- [23:20]
A
Marco Rubio has to defend it even though he sits next to Donald Trump in these Cabinet meetings while Donald Trump is sleeping. We can show the picture of that. We have that picture, but, you know, Donald Trump and is falling asleep right next to these cabinet areas right there. Drowsy. Donald Trump resting. He's just resting his eyes as, as his social media rapid response.
- [23:42]
C
People say there's another video where he even looks more asleep. I mean, look, here's the thing. There are two kinds of really effective questioning. There is the, you know, the sort of like tell, you know, doesn't he seem like he's sleeping stuff. I think it might be more effective like what we saw with Chris Murphy yesterday where you're trying, you're trying to get them on the record to say, for example, yesterday Chris Murphy was questioning Mark Wayne Mullen and he said, you know, if the courts rule something, will you follow the court orders? And Mark Wayne Mullen said, like, the courts are often wrong. That is an insane thing to say. And like, if you look at the way we've seen testimony and I'm thinking about like the Kristi Noem testimony or the Pam Bondi testimony, those were two basically cabinet positions that ended after testimony. Kristi Noem could not say she wasn't having relations with Corey Lewandowski. And Pam Bondi could not, could not defend what she was doing and said, you know, like Mr. Trump, the Dow is at 10,000. Have you ever, you know, have you thanked Donald Trump for that? So I do think, I mean, look, part, I do think that there are when there's so much lying going on, which circulate is quite a lot of lying, it is pretty easy to catch these people in changing stories. I mean, like, I think one of the things that made the first year of this second term so bulletproof was that Donald Trump had, he kept, he was sort of, they were keeping their stories in lockstep and then about 18, you know, but now we're, you know, whatever almost two years into it and we're seeing they can't the stories are over the place. We went in because they had a nuke, because they were getting a nuke because we were seeing a nuke because
- [25:43]
A
of Marco Rubio said they were not at war, that were not at war. Yesterday he said that during it during a Senate hearing, we're not at war. And that I think he said that as the US and the Iranians were firing upon one another. And the other thing too, Molly, is, is that, you know, Donald Trump, when he does serve as, as Ted Lude was saying just a few moments ago, we have not seen Donald Trump publicly very much at all over the last week now. And that includes when he went up to Walter Reed and had his physical exam and cognitive test. But he had time for the New York Post and apparently he's still talking about election conspiracy theories in January 6th being a false flag operation. We should play this, because I, this is going somewhere, I promise you. Let's. Let's watch.
- [26:26]
F
Yes, it's a great. I'll tell you, 2024 was a great election. That was a lot of rigging going on there too, because you know what? I wanted a landslide, but there were areas that were just rigged. I could see it. So in other words, rigged against me. Yeah, of course, of course. And the anti weaponization fund, have you dropped that? No, a court ruled against it. Yeah, but, but just so you understand, these are people that have been decimated. These are people that lost their lives over nonsense where the FBI said, go in, go in, police, go in, go into the. And they were supposed to serve five years, 10 years in jail.
- [27:09]
A
The January 6 rioters and insurrectionists to go in, go in. So he's, he's peddling the false flag thing.
- [27:14]
C
Right.
- [27:15]
A
And you know, and here's the thing. Even Marco Rubio has to go along with this stuff. Let's play Marco Rubio was asked who won the 2020 election.
- [27:25]
C
Yeah.
- [27:26]
A
Marco Rubio is supposed to be one of the normies. Sarah Jacobs.
- [27:28]
C
That's a really good, easy question that you can ask them again and again. And it's a really good example of how they, you know, untruth only gets you so far.
- [27:39]
A
Let's play this. If we have the. I think we have the Sarah Jacobs. This is wild.
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C
Mr. Secretary, who won the 2020 presidential election?
- [27:47]
E
I'm not here to answer about 2020. This is a foreign affairs committee.
- [27:51]
B
Okay, great. You can't answer the question even though
- [27:53]
C
we all know that President Biden.
- [27:56]
E
Because the Secretary of State. I do not participate in domestic.
- [27:59]
C
This is not about domestic political.
- [28:00]
B
Political issues. This is about our democracy.
- [28:02]
E
You're asking me to opine. Just like I don't do campaign. It seems like, because as Secretary of state, we're not supposed to. That's been the long tradition of the department. And you should know that.
- [28:11]
A
Yeah. So, I mean, Molly, for all the folks who say the Democrats, it seems like you. That was very tough moment.
- [28:17]
C
Yeah. Also the other thing is, like, he has 10 jobs. He's the archivist. Like, I'm just the Secretary of state. State. You're not. You have like five other jobs.
- [28:27]
A
He's a DJ. I think he's performing on July 4th. He has a lot of jobs.
- [28:32]
C
I mean, you know, the whole idea that he can't answer that question. I mean, look, what was, you know, I do think that as we watch this crew, like it's harder and harder for them to defend this, you see, they're having more and more trouble doing it. So I do think like this kind of pushback is, is how, is, is the only way to do it.
- [28:56]
A
And I think you have to keep asking this question. Even of the normies, the so called normies like Marco Rubio could not answer that question because he knows if he answers that question, he is no longer the Secretary of State or he's on thin ice. And then maybe they can't invade Cuba and he can't be the 2028 nominee. He's all these thoughts, all these Machiavellian thoughts are running around in his head like little squirrels. But I mean, that leads me to another very important national security position. If, you know, if there's supposed to be this firewall between domestic and national security, why is Bill Pulte named the Acting Director of National Intelligence? I mean, that to me might take the cake for the most unqualified person possible to be in a very important national security. And we should note, even the Republican senators, the Majority Leader in the Senate, John Thune, is saying we don't need a weaponized Director of National Intelligence, and yet we may get one.
- [29:51]
C
Bill Pulte is not going to get through Senator confirmation. Now, whether or not Donald Trump slaps him with an acting, little acting sign for the next prize, however long he can. I don't know what the, the statute is on that maybe. But you know, there's also, it says with that job you have to have some background in national security. So I'm not, I'm not convinced this works for Trump. It's a good, here's what I would say. Here's my counterintuitive take on this. It's a good hire because it's so insane. It's not like he's putting someone who's a little normal. It's not like he's found a member of Congress or someone really competent and capable. He's found the guy who cooked up this idea of mortgage fraud against the President's enemies. None of those cases have worked. FYI, it turns out that this guy, Bill Pulte's stepmother, has a mortgage that is the same. You know, I mean, of course these guys are not. So I think the good news about this is that it's a very sketchy hire and it would be very hard for these Republicans to defend it. I think you're in worse shape when you have like real, where you, where you find Them trying to put someone in there who's a real person.
- [31:13]
A
Yeah. And I mean, when John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, is saying we don't need a weaponized Director of National Intelligence, I mean, that is, you know, they don't, they don't squawk very much over there on the Republican side in the Congress, but they're squawking over this. They were squawking over the January 6th fund. But, you know, Tulsi Gabbard was apparently not political enough for Donald Trump in the role that she had, and she was willing to go down to Atlanta to help seize ballots from the 2020 election from Fulton County. So just imagine. Yeah.
- [31:43]
C
The hard thing about covering this moment is it's hard to know what is like, legitimately they are going to end our elections because they clearly Donald Trump would like to and what is their incompetent.
- [31:59]
F
Ha ha.
- [31:59]
C
And like, it's often sort of the middle right. That there. It's some of both. And that's why it's so scary. It's like, it's really scary. What the DNI could do to our elections is really scary. And, and we heard Mark Wayne Mullen saying he's not going to follow what the courts tell him. So that's also scary. But the other thing is that, like, Bill Pulte does not understand the levers of power. And my man was basically an Internet troll before this. So that is sort of the good news there.
- [32:30]
A
That is the good news. Lately, I've been, you know, the license plate around Washington, D.C. is taxation without representation. I've been suggesting it should be corruption without competence, because at the very least, the, the incompetence part gives me hope that in the end, they will do themselves.
- [32:46]
C
Going for us at this moment is that these guys are, I mean, they're not smart. I mean, that's the thing. It's like there was not some master plan. I mean, and that I think is worth, you know, there is no master plan for these people. They are just trying to stay above water, squander our tax dollars and do petty crimes. Like there's no, like, larger conspiracy.
- [33:12]
A
That's right. Well, Molly, as always, thank you so much. Great to see you. We should do this again soon. And. And we'll. We do it in less than 60 minutes, ladies.
- [33:23]
C
Yes.
- [33:23]
A
That.
- [33:24]
C
That is 20 minutes.
- [33:25]
A
And that's the way it is. Molly, great to see you. Thanks so much.
- [33:29]
C
Thanks.
- [33:30]
A
Thank you. Appreciate it. And I just want to say, you know, I just want to reiterate something because you know, yes, as Molly was saying, you know, it is tough for us to do investigative journalism in independent media world. As it stands now, now things could be changing. And in five years from now, 10 years from now, you may have a very serious, solid independent journalism outlet in this world, in this realm that is doing great investigative journalism. So I would say just give it time. But at the very, at the moment that we're in right now, it's places like 60 Minutes that we rely upon to do this kind of important work. And when you have an acting director of National Intelligence with no national intelligence experience whatsoever, I mean, these are the times that call for great investigative journalism. And I just, before we go, I want to just reiterate what Scott Pelley said in his statement about his firing at 60 minutes. He said, 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. I mean, that is the most damn. If you want to look at Scott Pelly's statement, it's really more of an affidavit. It's really more of an indictment of Bari Weiss and the Ellisons and what they're doing at 60 minutes. It's an indictment of what the Ellisons and Barry Weiss are doing at 60 minutes. And if Bari Weiss and the Ellisons and the people on their team are telling the likes of Scott Pelley to inject political bias, to inject falsehoods into their stories, to include assertions that are unverified, then they are doing great damage, not only to a network, not only to the most important news magazine in America. They are doing damage to our democracy. They are doing damage to the free press in this country, and it needs to be called out. And I really, I can't wait for the moment when Scott Pelley comes out and says this on camera, when Sharon Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega come out and say this on camera. Statements are great, and it's important for them to put those kinds of statements out. But the clock is ticking on the free press in this country. To borrow a sound effect from the 60 Minutes stopwatch, the clock is ticking. And you know, right now we are in a place where, where Bari Weiss and the Ellisons are trying to do to 60 Minutes in CBS News what Donald Trump is doing to the country, to trample on independent thought, to trample on journalism, to stop the pursuit of the truth, to stop the seeking of the facts that matter to all of us. And that is something we must stop in this moment. And if that means, you know, listen, anytime something pops up on cbs, you turn it off, I think that's a very logical thing to do. If it means canceling your Paramount Support subscriptions. I mean, I was talking about all of this, about when it came to the firing of Stephen Colbert, when it came to the firing of Jimmy Kimmel. We, the public, must act, and the public must act now. What they are trying to do is un American. I challenge Barry Weiss. I challenge the Ellisons. I challenge the people at the top at cbs. Look at yourselves in the mirror and ask yourselves this question. Is what you're doing good for this country? Is what you're doing good for this democracy, good for the free press? I don't think it is, and I think you know that it isn't. I think you know that you're being used right now by the people at the White House, who more than anybody else, any other White House that we've seen in recent memory. It warrants serious investigative journalism. They absolutely. Their actions absolutely warrant serious investigative journalism. Barry, here's. Here's some advice from some unpaid advice, unsolicited advice from yours truly. Leave it to the professionals. Leave it to people like Scott Pelly. Leave it to people like Sharon Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. They're the pros. They know how to handle this stuff. They know what they're doing. Get the hell out of the way. My thanks to Katie Fang and Molly Zhang. Fast today. Really appreciate everybody tuning in. Thanks for supporting independent journalism. It does matter, now more than ever. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time.