Megyn Kelly has criticized CBS News for airing a version of its 60 Minutes interview of Pete Hegseth that she claims misled viewers about Israel’s role in the Iran war.
On her SiriusXM show Monday, Kelly called attention to one difference between the interview broadcast Sunday night and the full interview that is available online.
In the broadcast interview, one of CBS correspondent Major Garrett’s questions to Hegseth was overdubbed. A voiceover said: “Some normally enthusiastic supporters of the president have criticized him, suggesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled the U.S. into a war that, to their minds, did not put American interests first.”
Cutting back to Hegseth, Garrett’s question ends with: “Do you want to address that criticism?”
Hegseth replied, in part: “All I know is I’m in the room every day, and I see how President Trump operates and what he’s putting first, and it’s America, Americans, and American interests.”
In the full interview posted online, the voiceover is missing and replaced with a question by Garrett that focuses on a similar theme, but does not cite Israel or Netanyahu.
“You mentioned America First. Some who identify with that movement—Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene—have said from their perspective this isn’t an America First campaign. Do you want to address that criticism?” Garrett asked.
Kelly was enraged.
“There was nothing, nothing about Netanyahu and nothing about Israel in the Q or the A. Only CBS decided to style it in that fashion,” Kelly said.
“Here’s the thing, they do not give a s--t about misleading you over at CBS—the old CBS or the new CBS, which has a brand new agenda," she continued. “The left will tell you it’s pro-MAGA. It’s not pro-MAGA, trust me. Watch two minutes of the evening news or the morning news, it is not pro-MAGA at all. But it is Pro-Israel.”
Kelly then criticized CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss.
Weiss, she claimed, “has finally achieved her dream of running a news network that will be entirely pro-Israel.”
Representatives for CBS News and Weiss did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Kelly and Carlson, both former Fox News hosts, have criticized Trump for striking Iran, claiming that the U.S. was doing Israel’s bidding—and were promptly attacked by Trump for saying so.
On her show last week, Kelly said that “no one should have to die for a foreign country.”
“I don’t think those service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel,” she said. “No one is crying that the ayatollah is dead, but our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or Israel. It’s to look out for us.”
Carlson, who reportedly tried to talk Trump out of the war, said on his show last Monday, “This happened because Israel wanted it to happen.”
“This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war,” he said. “This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives, to make the United States safer or richer... This war is waged purely because Israel wanted it to be waged.”
The editorial direction of CBS News—and 60 Minutes—has been a widely-discussed topic after since Weiss, 41, was installed as top editor by David Ellison, the CEO of parent company Paramount Skydance, to help make the network more pallatable to conservative audiences.
CBS has since had layoffs, buyouts and the loss of top talent like 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper, who was reportedly unsettled by the network’s “rightward direction.” Earlier Monday, Justice Department correspondent Scott MacFarlane announced his departure.
To helm CBS’s evening news show, Weiss selected former MS NOW correspondent and Daily Beast reporter Tony Dokoupil. In Dokoupil’s troubled first week in the role, he gave a “salute” to “ultimate Florida man, Marco Rubio”—a segment that was called “Fox Lite.”
