White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has waded into the controversy surrounding a 60 Minutes segment that was suddenly spiked from Sunday night’s episode by CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss.
During a Tuesday appearance on Fox News, Miller said producers pushing back on Weiss’s last-minute decision should be fired immediately.
He told host Charlie Hurt that such staffers are effectively staging a ‘revolt’.
The report was set to speak on conditions at Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), an infamous Salvadoran prison where the Trump administration has been deporting and imprisoning migrants with suspected gang ties.
Sources at the company told CNN, ‘People are threatening to quit over this.’ A 60 Minutes editor expressed similar sentiments in statements to the Daily Mail this week.
Miller, in turn, complained: ‘You have these 60 Minutes producers who are living in comfort and security in their West End condos trying to make us feel sympathetic for these monsters?
‘Have you seen the tattoos, the face tattoos, the body tattoos on these killers?’
He went on to dare 60 Minutes staffers to invite any of the prison’s inhabitants into their homes for a night – before offering his own advice.
White House staffer Stephen Miller took aim at staffers frustrated by Bari Weiss’s decision to do away with a 60 Minutes segment about a Salvadoran prison where the administration has deported migrants during an appearance on Fox News Tuesday
!['[E]very one of those producers at ¿60 Minutes¿ engaged in this revolt. Fire them, clean house, fire them,' Miller said. Pictured, 60 Minutes correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, L. Jon Wertheim, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Cecilia Vega, and Anderson Cooper](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/12/24/16/105000659-15411821-_E_very_one_of_those_producers_at_60_Minutes_engaged_in_this_rev-a-20_1766594923642.jpg)
‘[E]very one of those producers at ‘60 Minutes’ engaged in this revolt. Fire them, clean house, fire them,’ Miller said. Pictured, 60 Minutes correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, L. Jon Wertheim, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Cecilia Vega, and Anderson Cooper
‘Who was taking that deal at 60 Minutes?’ Miller, 40, asked rhetorically. ‘Nobody. Because they know that these are monsters who got exactly what they deserved.
‘Because under President Trump, we are not going to let little girls get raped and murdered anymore. And every one of those producers at ‘60 Minutes’ engaged in this revolt. Fire them, clean house, fire them.
‘That’s what I say, Charlie,’ he concluded.
The 60 Minutes journalist who reported the piece, Sharyn Alfonsi, wrote an angry missive to staffers Sunday that appeared to stoke the reported rebellion.
The internal memo slammed Weiss’s move as ‘not an editorial decision’ but ‘a political one’. The note was swiftly leaked to the media.
Alfonsi’s 13-minute segment then ‘mistakenly’ aired in Canada, according to producers.
The show was updated just two hours before it went to air in the US. Showrunners said Alfonsi’s piece would air on a ‘future broadcast’.
As the backlash began, Weiss, 41, asserted that her decision had anything to do with politics, telling the New York Times Sunday: ‘My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be.
Alfonsi, a longtime presence at 60 Minutes, reported the piece. She slammed Weiss’s decision to spike the story as ‘political’ in an angry memo to staffers that stoked staffers’ frustrations
Weiss, 41, took the reins at CBS just a few months ago. A right-leaning opinion journalist, she has never led a major newsroom
‘Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason – that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices – happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.’
Weiss reiterated her concerns about a lack of response from Miller and other White House officials during a Monday morning phone call with 60 Minutes staffers which was recorded and leaked to the Wall Street Journal.
The scandal surrounding the segment comes as David Ellison, the new owner of CBS parent company Paramount, continues his hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros-Discovery.
He installed Weiss as the head of CBS News back in October.
Weiss is a former Times opinion page editor who founded the right-leaning Free Press and never led a major news organization.
Multiple industry executives told the Mail this week that Weiss’s handling of the 60 Minutes situation showed her inexperience.
One such source said: ‘Bari is a chaos agent – she ran the Free Press in the same haphazard way so pulling a 60 Minutes story at the last minute after it’s promoted and thoroughly vetted completely tracks.
‘It’s clear Bari is more focused on gaining access to the powerful than actual journalism and holding those in power accountable.
‘She has singlehandedly destroyed the legacy of CBS News in less than three months and it can’t be spun and sugarcoated as disruption – it’s mismanagement to an extreme and being completely out of her depth in this role.’
Echoing Alfonsi’s claims, the exec lamented: ‘How demoralizing to see your boss push access journalism.’
Earlier this month, several sources told the Mail Weiss’s CBS News was rapidly becoming ‘laughing stock’ of the industry due to her style of leadership.
Another industry source told the Mail this week that when Weiss oversaw the network’s interview with Donald Trump last month, ‘she looked very, very nervous. So much so that she was asked how she was doing [by another CBS staffer].
‘She said it was because it was her first tv interview she ever produced in her life,’ the source said, noting that ‘People [who heard the exchange] were shocked.’
