CBS News abruptly removed the segment three hours before the broadcast.

60 Minutes correspondent slams CBS for yanking Trump deportations segment, calls decision ‘political’

CBS News abruptly removed the segment three hours before the broadcast.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on *Entertainment Tonight* and Popsugar.

EW's editorial guidelines

December 22, 2025 12:54 p.m. ET

Sharyn Alfonsi; Bari Weiss. Credit:

Michele Crowe/CBS; Noam Galai/Getty

A pulled *60 Minutes *segment is causing an uproar within CBS News.

After the network announced it wasn't airing Sunday's planned segment covering the stories of Venezuelan men deported out of the U.S. by the Trump administration and taken to a notorious El Salvador maximum-security prison, an email sent by one of its correspondents accused the move of being "corporate censorship."

In an email to fellow correspondents obtained by the *Wall Street Journal*, Sharyn Alfonsi, who has worked on *60 Minutes* for a decade, wrote that new CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss "spiked our story" in a decision she deemed political, and not an editorial call.

Sharyn Alfonsi on '60 Minutes' in 2023.

In the email, which was also posted in full on X by CNN Media Analyst Brian Stelter, Alfonsi wrote that the team had asked Weiss to discuss her last-minute call, but "she did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity."

"Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct," Alfonsi added. "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."

She continued, "If the standard for airing a story becomes 'the government must agree to be interviewed,' then the government effectively gains control over the *60 Minutes* broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state."

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

CBS promoted the segment as recently as Friday, featuring Alfonsi's interviews with some of the deported migrants who had since been released from the Terrorism Confinement Center — dubbed CECOT or Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo in Spanish — saying they described "the brutal and torturous conditions they endured."

Alfonsi referenced the interviewees in her email, writing, "These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless."

According to *the New York Times*, Weiss suggested an interview with Stephen Miller, the White House's deputy chief of staff for policy, who has been outspoken about increasing ICE raids and deportations. Weiss reportedly gave Miller's contact details to *60 Minutes* staff.

Bari Weiss in 2025.

Michele Crowe/CBS News via Getty

Weiss defended her decision in a statement to outlets on Sunday. "My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be," she said. "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 was appointed to her new role in October after David Ellison, the owner of CBS's parent company, Paramount Skydance, acquired her independent news and opinion site, The Free Press. She has been setting the stage for a broad overhaul of the news network, including launching new town hall series, the first of which featured Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative personality Charlie Kirk, who was killed earlier this year.**

Maurice DuBois departing 'CBS Evening News,' leaving show without an anchor

'CBS Mornings' host Tony Dokoupil to anchor 'CBS Evening News'

Sunday's segment is the latest of several covering the Trump administration's highly controversial mass deportations of immigrants, of which 50 percent of adults disapprove, according to a recent study from Pew Research Center.

Alfonsi, who was reportedly emailing correspondents such as Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley and Anderson Cooper, signed off her email writing, "We are trading 50 years of 'Gold Standard' reputation for a single week of political quiet. I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight."

- News & Commentary Shows

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW News”