Incoming 60 Minutes correspondent Ross Douthat has told a former colleague that if people want answers about where the show is headed, they’ll have to ask his MAGA-coded new boss.
Douthat, 46, spent 17 years as a New York Times opinion columnist before Bari Weiss, 42, hired him in July as one of the first marquee names of her tumultuous CBS News overhaul. Douthat, who has never reported for a living and has spent almost no time on camera, is a conservative and devout Catholic.
Douthat sat down for a podcast interview on Monday with his former Times colleague Ezra Klein, who twice pressed him on what plans Weiss has for the program following the staff departures.
“What did they say they wanted?” Klein asked Douthat. “What is your sense of what 60 Minutes is trying to become with launching you as a marquee name?”
The opinion writer would not be drawn. “You would need to get Bari to come on your podcast to get her answer to that question,” he replied. “I see what I want to do at 60 Minutes, in the show itself, I think is in keeping with what the show has always done incredibly well, which is to help people understand what’s really happening in the world and get an accurate sense of reality itself through interviews, investigations, and so on.”
Weiss, who has served as editor-in-chief since October following a takeover of the network’s parent company by David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump ally Larry Ellison, in a controversial merger last year, has purged 60 Minutes’ ranks of veteran investigative reporters and producers.
Weiss has scrambled to fill the desks left empty after the firing of Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi, and Cecilia Vega, who clashed with Weiss over what they describe as a conservative editorial stance and reluctance to pursue stories critical of the Trump administration under her leadership.
She has also appointed Nick Bilton, a technology reporter turned screenwriter and documentary filmmaker who, like Douthat, has never worked in TV news, to help save 60 Minutes.
One veteran television executive told Status in July that the idea of Douthat serving as a 60 Minutes correspondent was “a joke.” A second industry figure told the outlet that none of Weiss’ new signings, like British broadcaster Sir Trevor Phillips and ex-VICE correspondent Gianna Toboni, would have been considered for the program in its prime.
In his interview with Klein, Douthat did reveal what he believes has motivated some of the changes Weiss has instituted since taking the helm last year.
“I think, if you had Bari here, she would say that is her formal goal—that lots and lots of media institutions have lost the trust of people who aren’t politically liberal or progressive,” he said. “And so there’s a way to try to have a more balanced view of the world and try to get those people back.”
The exchange with Klein closed on unidentified flying objects. Asked whether CBS’ resources would help him crack the story, Douthat said that “this is obviously the No. 1 goal.” He then said he did not want to make promises. The subject had come up once or twice in talks about stories worth chasing, he added, possibly only from his end.
His interest in the topic is long-standing. Douthat used a December 2023 Times column to urge UFO whistleblowers to make their case publicly, and gave over an episode of his podcast Interesting Times to the phenomenon in 2025.
He and Vice President JD Vance, also a Catholic, discussed their shared experience of witnessing what appeared to be a miracle in 2019—at a bar—when a wine glass seemed to leap from a stable place behind the bar and smashed on the floor.
The Daily Beast has contacted CBS for comment on this story.
