Trump-curious CBS News editor-in-chief made a très embarrassing comeback to Trump-furious actor George Clooney’s damning claim that she is ruining the once-prestigious network.
Clooney, who played CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck on Broadway earlier this year, and directed and co-wrote the Oscar-nominated 2005 movie it was based on, called out Weiss for bowing to the egos of the Trump administration in her new role.
“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Clooney told Variety on Tuesday. “Am I worried about film studios? Sure. It’s my business, but my primary loyalty is to my country. I’m much more worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”
In her cringeworthy reply, Weiss seemed to be referencing George, his wife Amal, and their two children being granted French citizenship on Monday.
“Bonjour, Mr. Clooney! Big fan of your work. It sounds like you’d like to learn more about ours,” Weiss said in a statement to the New York Post on Tuesday.
“This is an open invitation to visit the CBS Broadcast Center, where I’m spending the holidays working to relaunch the Evening News with my colleagues. Tune in January 5.”
In the Variety cover story, vocal Trump critic Clooney also called out ABC for paying Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over on-air comments made by George Stephanopoulos last December, and the same amount being paid to the president by CBS in July after he criticized the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris less than a month before the 2024 presidential election.
The latter lawsuit cleared the way for Paramount, the parent company of CBS, to merge with Skydance.
“If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go, f--- yourself, we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney said in the new interview. “That’s simply the truth.”
Earlier this month 60 Minutes pulled a story on the Salvadoran megaprison CECOT three hours before it was due to air.
Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent who reported the segment, wrote a memo that said she and her producer had asked Weiss for a call to discuss her decision to “spike” the story, but that Weiss “did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.”
“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,“ Alfonsi said in the memo, which was leaked online.
Clooney, who said he was once friendly with Trump, admitted it was “a very trying time” under the 79-year-old’s leadership.
“It can depress you or make you very angry. But you have to find the most positive way through it. You have to put your head down and keep moving forward because quitting isn’t an option,” said the two-time Oscar winner.
The Clooneys have been living in southern France since 2021 in order to raise their children outside of the Hollywood spotlight. “Here, they don’t take photos of kids,” Clooney told RTL Radio of life in France. “There aren’t any paparazzi hidden at the school gates. That’s number one for us.”
Clooney isn’t the only celebrity who has chosen to settle overseas. Comedians Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres both opted to leave the U.S. behind following Trump’s election in 2024. Angelina Jolie is also reportedly looking to flee the country once her youngest children, twins Knox and Vivienne, turn 18 in July.
