You have now accused Weiss of injecting, and I’m quoting here, “falsehoods and bias,” into at least one of your politically sensitive stories. What did you think was going on with Bari Weiss? Why did you think she was asking for these things? – The impression that I had at the moment was that she was representing, let me try, I kind of need to be a little bit careful here because I don’t want to be hyperbolic. My impression at the time was that she was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration. Just constantly looking out for the views of the president. We’re reporting those views. There’s nothing wrong with reporting those views, but it was never enough. Always needed more from the president, from the administration, that sort of thing. The balance was off. We’d been working for balance for decades, and for the first time in my career, the balance was off. – Do you think Bari Weiss needs to be removed? – Oh gosh, yes. Look, she’s a lovely person. And her Free Press organization that she founded has been very successful. She’s proven that. Great for her. But television’s not her thing. She brings an ideology into CBS News where that is just anathema. It’s a terrible fit. She doesn’t know television, she doesn’t understand how it works. She doesn’t have management experience for a large organization like CBS News. So yes, I do think that we would be far better off without her. Maybe she goes back to The Free Press and has a sterling career, but this is like somebody walking up to me and saying, “There’s a 747, there are 400 people on it, we need you to fly it to Paris.” I’m going to decline. Because I don’t have a clue. And it would have been so much better if Bari Weiss had been offered this job and said, “Oh, that’s not for me. I don’t know how to do that.”
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