CBS News’ Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss has sidelined yet another 60 Minutes veteran in favor of her own pick for a high-profile interview with British politician Nigel Farage, according to a new report.
Senior Foreign Correspondent Holly Williams was supposed to conduct the interview with Farage — who resigned from Parliament as he faced scrutiny over his finances — but Weiss later told Williams that her colleague Trevor Phillips would be taking the assignment instead, Breaker Media reported.
Then-Executive Producer Tanya Simon reportedly approved the 60 Minutes story on Farage, assigning it to Williams, before she was ousted in May, along with her deputy, Draggan Mihailovich, and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi in a single day, dubbed “Black Thursday.”
CBS News welcomed Phillips as its senior global affairs correspondent last month.
Weiss said of Phillips, a seasoned British journalist and former U.K. politician, that his “deep knowledge of geopolitics and history will be an incredible asset at CBS News, where he’ll quickly become an indispensable voice for audiences across all platform.”
Variety, which shared Weiss’ statement, also reported that Phillips has faced scrutiny for comments he has made about British Muslims.
A person familiar with the matter told The Independent that no decision about any stories for the new 60 Minutes season has been finalized.
The source also rejected the idea that Weiss is meddling in any story assignments at CBS News, and said the editor-in-chief should be involved in major decisions.
“What’s being called ‘editorial interference’ is in reality the job description of an editor in chief,” Weiss told The Wall Street Journal in a June article.
Speaking of Phillips, the person called him a fair interviewer, pointing to a conversation the journalist had with Farage in 2024.
Phillips, who worked for Sky News at the time, pushed back on a claim from Farage that young Muslims in the U.K. increasingly don’t subscribe to British values, asking whether the politician wants to make a “blanket accusation” like that.
The planned 60 Minutes interview with Farage now holds even more significance after the populist, anti-immigration leader decided to quit Parliament to run again for the same seat in a special election.
“This will be a people versus the establishment by-election,” Farage said. “It’s a chance to stick two fingers up to the entire establishment, to frankly tell them where to go.”
The Farage interview shakeup isn’t the first time Weiss, who was controversially appointed as editor-in-chief last October, has reportedly intervened in a major political story.
Early on in her tenure, Weiss decided to pull a 60 Minutes segment about Venezuelan migrants sent by the Trump administration to CECOT, an El Salvadoran prison accused of having inhumane conditions. The segment aired nearly one month later.
There was also controversy surrounding a May 60 Minutes interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Independent news site Status reported at the time that Weiss had booked Netanyahu herself and tapped CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett for the interview, despite veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl trying to land a sit-down with the prime minister.
Former 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley reportedly accused Weiss of “murdering” the long-running news program before he was fired last month.
Pelley’s tense exchange occurred at a staff meeting on June 1, in which the program’s new executive producer Nick Bilton tried to reassure his colleagues that 60 Minutes “is going to stay exactly like it is for now,” and that “Bari loves this institution,” according to The New York Times, which obtained an audio recording of the conversation.
“She is murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that,” Pelley reportedly fired back.
