Newly-installed CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil suffered his way through yet another embarrassing on-air moment on Friday night after telling Pittsburgh steelworkers that his job is “harder than it looks.”
Closing this week’s traveling broadcast from Pittsburgh, Dokoupil, 45, was joined by a group of steelworkers. “Goodnight for now,” Dokoupil said, adding, “I’m going to talk to these steelworkers.”
He then proceeded to ask the men, “Do you want to trade jobs? This one’s not as easy as it looks!” One of the workers replied, “I’ve been learning that!” before stepping forward to shake Dokoupil’s hand.
The anchor, who was promoted into the nighttime anchor role by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, made his disastrous debut earlier this month, which included accidentally introducing himself twice and asking the control room a question while on air.
“First day, big problems here,” Dokoupil told viewers, before asking the show’s producers, “Are we going to Kelly here or are we going to go to Jonah Kaplan?” leaving several seconds of dead air as he waited for a response. “We’re doing Mark Kelly,” he eventually declared.
He also faced significant criticism for a bizarre sign-off he offered at the end of a segment about Secretary of State Marco Rubio, telling viewers, “Whatever you think of his politics, you’ve got to admit: it’s an impressive resume.”
In another awkward moment for viewers, Dokoupil’s interview with President Donald Trump went off the rails earlier this week after the president derailed it to discuss Dokoupil’s salary.
“If she got in, you probably wouldn’t have a job right now. Your boss, who’s an amazing guy, might be bust,” Trump told Dokoupil, referring to billionaire Paramount CEO and Trump ally David Ellison’s fate should Kamala Harris have won the 2024 election. “You wouldn’t have this job—certainly whatever the hell they’re paying you."
“For the record, I do think I’d have this job even if the other guys won,” Dokoupil responded, to which Trump said, “Yeah, but at a lesser salary.”
CBS Evening News suffered an 11.4 percent drop in ratings during Dokoupil’s first week on the job, with the numbers looking even more dire for the key 25-44 demographic, where viewership was down 19.44 percent.
Dokoupil has received some support, however, with CNBC’s Joe Kernen telling him in a Tuesday X post, “Hang in there, you have many fans.” When another user mentioned Dokoupil’s poor ratings and suggested this meant he did not, in fact, have many fans, Kernen replied, “Well, let’s see, who was still watching CBS.”
“People like you Jean. Unhinged hysterical TDS’ers. of course you’re not going to watch news presented objectively, right down the middle. Not to worry, plenty of places for you still out there. Unfortunately.”
Dokoupil’s wife, MS NOW anchor Katy Tur, has also publicly expressed support for her husband, sharing clips from his interviews on her social media accounts and commenting messages of support on official CBS News accounts.
This backfired for Tur, 42, when her ex-boyfriend, former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, 66, used her to take aim at her husband in a post shared to X on Wednesday.
“Honestly, @KatyTurNBC - your husband is drowning. Get him the eff out of there,” Olbermann, who was in his late 40s when he lived with Tur, wrote.
