CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss is handpicking who at the network will be invited to a ritzy dinner next week to “honor” the Trump White House.
David Ellison, the CEO of CBS’ parent company, is hosting the gathering next Thursday, two days before the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, and invitations have already gone out.
The occasion, the invitations stated, is to “honor” not only the White House but CBS’ White House correspondents.
But Breaker has followed up its prior reporting with a curious detail: “none of the correspondents have even been invited to the event.”
Weiss, people familiar with the matter told the outlet, is still figuring out who will be invited, even though it would seem like CBS’ White House correspondents would be an appropriate place to start.
Potential attendees include Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes, Senior White House Correspondents Weijia Jiang and Ed O’Keefe, White House reporter Olivia Rinaldi, and Robert Costa, national correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning and the network’s chief Washington analyst.
The invitations—with an RSVP date of April 17—were published on Thursday by Status. They also describe the gathering as a “celebration of the First Amendment.”
Two Trump administration figures have been invited, per Breaker: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
The event will take place at the United States Institute of Peace, one of the capital-area buildings that Trump slapped his name on late last year. Breaker reports that Public Citizen, the progressive consumer rights group, will protest outside the venue “with several other organizations and members of Congress.”
Paramount Skydance is poised to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN and several other media properties. Needless to say, MAGA world is looking forward to it; it was Hegseth who said last month that the sooner Ellison’s company could close the deal, the better. The move will require regulatory approval from the Trump administration.
Since taking over at CBS, Ellison, 43, and Weiss, 42, have sought to make the network more acceptable to conservative audiences. That has resulted in buyouts, layoffs, and criticism from departing staffers about the network’s rightward direction.
Weiss, the anti-woke opinion writer who had no prior television experience when Ellison named her to lead the newsroom, is reportedly planning more layoffs for June.
The Daily Beast has reached out to reps for Weiss, Paramount Skydance, and CBS News for comment.
