The liberal media has been melting down over the editor-in-chief at CBS News, Bari Weiss, holding a story about illegal aliens at CECOT, the prison in El Salvador, from running on 60 Minutes.
As we reported, she said it wasn't ready, and she wanted more, like comments from the Trump administration. She was obviously looking for balance in the piece.
Meltdown at CBS News: 60 Minutes Dumps Fawning Illegal Alien Deportation Segment at Last Second
Now her memo about what she wanted has leaked to Axios, and it just confirms how reasonable her requests were and how ridiculous the meltdown over this was.
New: See the memo Bari Weiss sent to some 60 Minutes staff on Sunday: pic.twitter.com/3ERieIGXLh
— Isabella Simonetti (@thesimonetti) December 22, 2025
She wasn't even saying it wasn't going to run, just "do more" beforehand, including getting the Trump administration on record. As she noted, "Tom Homan and Stephen Miller don’t tend to be shy. I realize we’ve emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record."
That's certainly true, about Homan and Miller; they're always willing to comment, and for something like this, you should have new comments from the administration.
According to the 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, in an internal email to producers, she termed the decision to hold the story "political." She said the administration refused to participate.
If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient.
The story did end up running in Canada. The show is distributed via an app owned by Global Television, so people could see what was included and what wasn't.
But now there are even more questions, according to Axios.
The segment ends with Alfonsi saying the Department of Homeland Security "declined our request for an interview and referred all questions about CECOT to El Salvador. The government there did not respond to our request."
Except there's a problem.
Some nuggets in here @axios:
— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) December 22, 2025
- Can confirm WH, State Dept and DHS all provided on record comment in response to CBS News journalists’ request for comment ahead of the segment. None of those comments made airhttps://t.co/hFkRmt5Uv9
According to a source familiar with "60 Minutes" correspondence with the administration, the "60 Minutes" team reached out to press officials at the White House, State Department, and DHS, all of which provided comment to CBS News.
- None of those comments, which varied in length and substance, were included in the piece viewed by Axios.
- CBS declined to comment.
Oh my. So this further confirms problems with the story if this is true. And if this is true, it raises questions about the representations Alfonsi made, if there actually was a comment. Sounds like Bari Weiss needs to have a serious conversation with the folks behind this segment.
Looks like the narrative against Bari Weiss just blew up and has boomeranged embarrassingly.
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