CBS News boss Bari Weiss, fresh off a dinner with Donald Trump, has ousted the network’s London bureau chief after they sparred over coverage of the president’s war with Iran and the Gaza war, according to reports.
Claire Day has been let go as London bureau chief following behind-the-scenes clashes with Weiss, CBS News’ anti-woke editor-in-chief, the New York Post reports.
Insiders described bubbling tensions between Day, a CBS News veteran of more than 23 years, and Weiss, who was installed at the helm of the network last October by Trump-friendly billionaire David Ellison.
“Claire was pushing back on calls” with Weiss over Middle East coverage, one source with knowledge told the Post.
Weiss, a self-proclaimed Zionist who has cheered on Trump’s war on Iran, “barely spoke to” Day to address their disagreements, the person said.
Day was ultimately fired even after an internal probe over potential slanted coverage cleared her of any alleged bias, sources told the Post.
A second CBS insider told the paper that there were no dramatic clashes between Weiss and Day on daily editorial calls, but noted that Day consistently advocated for more balanced reporting.
“It’s really sad. Claire has been the most committed soldier to CBS News for nearly a quarter of a century,” the source told the Post.
“For Bari and Tom to discard her because she failed some undefined purity test is appalling,” they added, referring to CBS News president Tom Cibrowski.
When reached for comment, CBS News sent the Daily Beast a memo Cibrowski sent to staff on Monday.
In the memo, Cibrowski announced Day’s departure, adding that she would be replaced by Shayndi Raice, The Wall Street Journal’s former deputy bureau chief for the Middle East and North Africa, who has been based in Israel.
Raice will take over all international coverage for CBS News out of London starting May 11, Cibrowksi said in his memo.
“Our London Bureau will be moving to a new editorial leadership structure, with the introduction of a foreign editor role overseeing all international coverage,” he wrote, adding, “it has been mutually agreed that Claire Day will leave us on May 1st.”
Cibrowski praised Day as “an advocate for courageous stories, an expert at complicated logistics and a wonderful partner to teams across the entire news division.”
“Her work made a difference for CBS News,” he wrote.
But Day appears to have had an enemy inside her newsroom.
One source told the Post that an unnamed freelance cameraman and editor—who reportedly claimed to have a “direct line” to Weiss—had accused Day of running the London bureau like a “Hamas cell.”
When Day addressed staff about her departure on Monday, she first asked the cameraman to step out of the room, a source told the Post, before giving an “emotional” farewell.
Weiss has faced waves of backlash from CBS staff amid accusations that she is steering coverage in a more Trump-friendly direction.
The 42-year-old CBS boss has hired Tony Dokoupil, another staunchly pro-Israel voice, to anchor CBS Evening News, a role in which he has at times been ridiculed for sounding more like a White House surrogate than an objective news reporter.
Weiss and CBS News’s coziness with the Trump administration was most recently called out by CBS staff when she attended a closed-door dinner to “honor” the president.
The dinner was hosted by Ellison as the Paramount Skydance CEO seeks federal approval for another takeover—a $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
