Former ’60 Minutes’ Correspondent Steve Kroft Speaks Out About CBS Show’s Crisis
What To Know
- Former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft blamed President Donald Trump for the recent staff upheaval and changes at the show.
- Trump has frequently attacked, threatened, and even filed a lawsuit against CBS and 60 Minutes, which resulted in a $16 million settlement.
- The changes come amid CBS News’ restructuring under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
Longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft has firmly placed the blame on President Donald Trump for the recent upheaval at the iconic CBS News magazine program.
The retired reporter spoke to the Status newsletter on Friday (May 29) after the latest string of staff changes at 60 Minutes. CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss announced last week that the show’s executive producer, Tanya Simon, would be replaced by filmmaker Nick Bilton. In addition, exec producer Draggan Mihailovich and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi were fired.
“Since I retired, I often wondered what would happen to 60 Minutes,” Kroft told the outlet, per The Huffington Post. “But I never expected it would be executed by the president of the United States.”
Kroft retired from 60 Minutes on May 19, 2019, after 30 seasons on the show. During his tenure, he received three Peabody Awards and nine Emmy awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in 2003.
“There is no smoking gun. But [Trump’s] fingerprints and DNA are all over this,” he added. “He’s been making threats against 60 Minutes and how he wanted it gone. And he finally got his wish.”
Last July, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to Trump as part of a settlement. Trump previously sued the company after an episode of 60 Minutes in which he claimed his then-presidential rival, Kamala Harris, was edited in a way to make her look better during the election.
While many legal experts agreed the president’s claims were baseless, the lawsuit was taken seriously, in part, because Paramount Global’s merger with Skydance Media required government approval.
Trump spent the preceding months railing against the show, often demanding it be taken off the air. “CBS should lose its license, and the cheaters at 60 Minutes should all be thrown out, and this disreputable ‘NEWS’ show should be immediately terminated,” Trump wrote on Truth Social back in February 2025.
Following the merger, Paramount-Skydance CEO David Ellison appointed Weiss as the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. Since taking over, Weiss has been putting her stamp on the network, with a particular focus on 60 Minutes, including staff changes and even pulling stories.
60 Minutes, Sundays, 7/6 c, CBS
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A
To my previous mentions of Mike Wallace and Don Hewitt, let me add Morley Safer and Ed Bradley to the names of people turning over in their graves over this latest "60 Minutes" maneuver...
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W
Such a shame that a 60 year old American tradition is destroyed by a relatively young, inexperienced person with a partisan viewpoint, her billionaire MAGA boss and Trump. Trying to stop the media from telling the truth is a clear sign of a dictator. They should be ashamed. They are incapable of creating anything half as good, half as respectable.
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T
That's actually the point. IMHO the goal was to discredit and dismember the CBS News organization. CNN is next. It's only a matter of time before they go after ABC and NBC. ABC will be the tougher of those two I suspect, but I could be wrong. At the end of the day what is wanted is for the big 4 plus CNN, PBS to be shoved aside for Fox and all of the other conservative propaganda machines
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K
No thought or even guessing involved here. The moves made by the alleged management staff of CBS are completely transparent. Keep SFB happy in the white house (and wherever else he roams) and all is right in fantasyland...God Help Us...!
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L
It would appear CBS is banking on the current political climate remaining embedded, that the current holders of power won't arbitrarily turn on them, and that the masses of lost viewers will eventually give up and return to being the product the network sells to its advertisers. Or at least that, if the cilmate reverses, lost viewers will be quickly forgiving of perceived craven, self-serving decisions. We'll see. But alongside voting with their continued viewership or withdrawal thereof, people will need to massively vote at the ballot boxes too, from local to national and especially in midterms, no matter how inconvenient or useless anyone tries to make it seem. As that TV ad states: "We the People" means all the people. So we shouldn't simply stop watching the news, but we need to be mindful of where/whom it's coming from.
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T
Kroft is another boomer complaining about progress
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T
Progress is doing something better, not worse.
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