A brief clip of a ‘60 Minutes’ investigation pulled at the last minute by CBS boss Bari Weiss is spreading like wildfire on social media amid fears of Trump-friendly censorship.
The segment—titled “Inside CECOT”—had been scheduled to air Sunday before Weiss stepped in to demand “additional reporting.” The program offered a deep dive into a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration sent deported Venezuelan men it accused of gang ties. The prison was also at the center of a campaign by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to deter immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally.
Featuring interviews with several men who described “brutal and torturous conditions,” the segment’s abrupt postponement just three hours before airtime led to a senior correspondent alleging that Weiss had bowed to “political” influence.
A trailer of the segment that had been made available on CBS’s official website and social media channels ahead of the broadcast was deleted after the sudden decision to scrap it. But the brief promo was still available elsewhere online, and it began widely circulating amid broader concerns about the circumstances behind its postponement.
“It began as soon as the planes landed,” the trailer begins.
“The deportees thought they were headed from the U.S. back to Venezuela, but instead they were shackled, paraded in front of cameras, and delivered to CECOT...where they told 60 Minutes they endured four months of hell,” the clip says.
“We thought we were already the living dead, honestly,” one man can be seen telling the correspondent before the promo ends.
The now-deleted trailer had been hosted on CBSNews.com as a standalone video page before returning a “Not Found” error after the segment was pulled.
The uproar inside CBS over the last-minute decision boiled over late Sunday when ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, 53, circulated an internal email accusing Weiss, 41, of spiking the piece under “political” pressure.
“In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one,” Alfonsi wrote.
Weiss had reportedly suggested that an interview with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, 40, could “save” the segment, though Alfonsi noted that producers had already given the Trump administration a chance to provide comment.
Weiss defended the decision in a statement to The New York Times, saying: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be.” She argued that holding stories lacking “critical voices” is standard practice.
The clash comes amid broader turbulence that has followed Weiss since Paramount Skydance elevated her to run CBS News in October.
Her early tenure included a staff memo calling for “equal scrutiny” of both political parties, as well as sweeping cancellations, layoffs, and the gutting of CBS’s race and culture unit—moves that deepened internal anxiety about editorial direction.
Now CBS staffers are reportedly discussing whether they can keep working under Weiss, with talk of resignations if the network keeps bending to outside pressure.
