60 Minutes Executive Producer Nick Bilton is looking to revive the program’s “A Few Minutes” segment, and is reaching out to some big names to do so.
CBS’s flagship show has already seen several personnel changes this year, including the firings of correspondents Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecelia Vega, as well as the departure of Anderson Cooper. Replacement hires, like former New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, have reportedly irked staffers.
Bilton, 49, is still looking for new faces in front of the camera ahead of next month’s Season 59 premiere.
Breaker reported Tuesday that the executive is aiming to bring back “A Few Minutes,” the humorous segment in which late comedian Andy Rooney had free rein to discuss whatever he pleased. CBS has discussed it with Jerry Seinfeld, John Cleese, and Stephen A. Smith.
Seinfeld, who reportedly declined to participate, has openly said he doesn’t “care about Palestine.” In a 2024 interview, Seinfeld, 72, spoke with self-described “Zionist fanatic” Bari Weiss about his pro-Israel advocacy.
He said then that he felt “a little bit” politicized by the state of affairs, and while he supports younger generations diving into politics, “we have to just correct their aim.”
“When we get protesters occasionally, I love to say to the audience, ‘You know I love that these young people, they’re trying to get engaged with politics, we have to just correct their aim a little bit, they don’t seem to understand that as comedians we really don’t control anything,’” said Seinfeld, who later that year walked back his criticisms of the “extreme left” for suppressing comedy.
Seinfeld has not retracted his comments about Palestine.
Cleese, the 86-year-old English comedian and actor who co-founded Monty Python, has criticized Donald Trump and “woke” culture.
“There’s plenty of people who are PC now who have absolutely zero sense of humor,” Cleese told the Daily Beast in 2020.
Smith, the boisterous ESPN host, political commentator and actor, is not a comedian, though he has been known to pepper his monologues with catchphrases. Smith, 58, has been critical of both Republicans and Democrats. Donald Trump has lauded him as a “smart” guy with “great entertainment skills.”
Whoever Bilton selects, the 60 Minutes segment will feature a rotating cast, Breaker says. A CBS rep did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
