George Clooney made his intense distaste for CBS’s MAGA makeover clear in a new interview on Tuesday.
The A-lister spoke to Variety about Donald Trump’s increasing influence over the media—and singled out one of his sychophants above all others. “Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” he said.
Since taking over at CBS, Weiss anchored the first installment of a “town hall” series, starring the widow of murdered conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk, and made a last-minute call to cancel a segment on the El Salvador megaprison that held Venezuelan men Trump deported. Weiss is also reportedly planning to overhaul 60 Minutes more broadly.
The MAGA-curious Free Press founder was installed as CBS News’ editor-in-chief in October, after Trump-friendly billionaire David Ellison purchased its parent company, Paramount. Merging the company with Ellison’s Skydance required approval from Trump’s FCC in July.
Some onlookers saw Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump over his 60 Minutes lawsuit as a way to ensure the merger went through. The company also axed Trump nemesis Stephen Colbert’s Late Show ahead of the decision.
The pattern of Trump wins came after he also sued and settled with ABC over George Stephanopoulos’s comments about Trump’s sexual assault case with E. Jean Carroll.
“If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go f--- yourself,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney told Variety. “That’s simply the truth.”
As MAGA hits the press, Clooney said he’s also “worried about film studios,” but “my primary loyalty is to my country.” He concluded, “I’m worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”
