December 22, 2025

The “60 Minutes” we have known is dead. The fearless program that many of us grew up with was strangled by corporate titans seeking favor with the Trump White House. I don’t know what is next for the storied franchise, but it will never be the same.

Last May, as Donald Trump was targeting lawyers and law firms with sanctions, “60 Minutes” aired a segment that began as follows:

It was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story because of the fear now running through our system of justice. In recent weeks, President Trump has signed orders against several law firms—orders with the power to destroy them. That matters because lawsuits have been a check on the president’s power. Many firms and attorneys have been targeted. Among them is Marc Elias, a longtime opponent of Trump, who is the only lawyer the president has named who was willing to appear on 60 Minutes.

I agreed to speak out publicly because I believed it was the right thing to do. I chose to do so on “60 Minutes” because I trusted it to be the least likely news outlet to bend to pressure from the administration.

I have no regrets about speaking out against Trump. If anything, I am even more willing to do so now than I was in May. However, I no longer believe “60 Minutes” can be trusted to stand up to the Trump administration. 

Last night, only hours before it was set to air an episode about the treatment of migrants shipped to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, “60 Minutes” mysteriously pulled the episode. Approximately an hour before airtime, the highly rated CBS News program posted the following on social media:

EDITOR’S NOTE: The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of “60 Minutes” has been updated. Our report on “Inside CECOT” will air in a future broadcast.

It was immediately clear what had happened. CBS’s parent company, Paramount, had preemptively caved to pressure from the White House. In the words of authoritarianism expert Timothy Snyder, CBS News had “obeyed in advance.”

This is nothing new for the former Tiffany Network. To secure its most recent merger deal, Paramount compromised the integrity of “60 Minutes” by paying Trump $16 million to settle a bogus lawsuit involving an interview with Kamala Harris. Earlier this year, it also attempted to appease Trump by airing a softball interview with him.

Yet none of these measures was enough to satisfy Trump. As everyone who capitulates to Trump eventually learns, his memory is short and his list of grievances is long. In Paramount’s case, its backbending wasn’t enough to secure the administration’s support for the company’s newly proposed takeover of Warner Bros.

In fact, Trump recently attacked both “60 Minutes” and Paramount’s new owners on social media:

For those people that think I am close with the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called “takeover” than they have ever treated me before. If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!

We now know that CBS was not done compromising “60 Minutes’” integrity in its efforts to curry favor with Trump. The CECOT segment had been fully vetted, cleared by lawyers, and was ready to air — until CBS News’ new conservative editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, reportedly stepped in and insisted the story be held pending further reporting.

Make no mistake: There will be no further reporting. There will only be further compromises to please the White House. 

Sharyn Alfonsi, the “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the story, wrote in an internal email that pulling the story was “a political” decision, not an editorial one. “We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.” 

For someone like me, who relied on the integrity and good faith of CBS News, this is profoundly disappointing. But whether I appeared on “60 Minutes” or not, my life was going to be the same. Trump hated me before I appeared, and he still hates me today.

I continue to be a thorn in his side. I regularly appear in the media as a Trump critic, and I litigate against his administration and its political allies. The risks I have taken did not materially increase by appearing on this single broadcast.

But there are others — like the former inmates of CECOT — whose risks are vastly greater. Whistleblowers and victims of this administration may face severe personal and professional consequences, including threats to their lives.

Once upon a time, “60 Minutes” was an honorable institution where people in vulnerable positions could trust that their interests would be protected and their stories would be treated fairly. After last night, that is simply no longer the case. The stakes for many of these individuals are too high to trust a network willing to compromise itself so quickly to please an authoritarian.

As for the rest of us — the viewers and consumers of news — we must align our values with our media support. When you watch CBS News, you are tacitly endorsing what is happening. You are signaling to advertisers that their money is well spent reaching you on the corrupted platform.

The solution is not to switch to ABC, which also capitulated to and paid Trump. Nor is it NBC, whose parent company is reportedly helping Trump fund efforts to undermine the White House.

If we are to survive this era, we must support independent news outlets that share our values and are unafraid to challenge Trump. I started Democracy Docket to be one of those outlets, but there are others, too. Now is the time to show them your support — and signal to the media's corporate overlords that you will not stand for their weakness and capitulation.