Scott Pelley
The broadcast journalist who stood up to CBS News' increasingly pro-MAGA bias is now speaking out about his views on President Donald Trump and the First Amendment.
Speaking with The New York Times in an interview released on Sunday, Pelley was asked about Trump referring to him as part of a gang of "stupid, crooked people that don’t care about your country."
"Stupid? I can, I can take that," Pelley said. "Stiff? Yeah, probably. Don’t care about the country? I’ve never worn the uniform, but I’ve been in combat for this country, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kuwait. Been shot at. Spent nights in foxholes filling up with water in the desert. I’m not aware that the President of the United States has ever done any of those things for his country. Please correct me if I’m wrong."
Pelley added, "You become a journalist because you love the First Amendment. You become a journalist because you love the country. And while all the other descriptions, that the president used about me might be applicable. Not that one. There is no democracy without journalism. It can’t be done. And that is why I am a journalist."
When asked about the future of CBS News in the aftermath of his departure, Pelley said that he hopes it will prompt Larry and David Ellison, the two pro-Trump CEOs of Paramount, to reevaluate their gutting of the venerable news network.
"My hope is that the leadership of Paramount will say to themselves, 'OK, this isn’t working,'" Pelley told The New York Times. "We have respected journalists saying that there is a thumb on the scale for one political party over another. And there’s a subtle political bias that I’ve never seen at '60 Minutes' before or at CBS News before. We can save this. It’s possible to land this plane, but right now, CBS News, in my view, is on fire."
Pelley is not alone in worrying that the Ellisons are kowtowing to Trump at the expense of CBS News' integrity. Earlier this month Steve Schmidt, an ex-GOP presidential adviser who worked for President George W. Bush, echoed those arguments.
"There are many words that can be used to describe 60 Minutes: Venerable. August. Excellent. Important. Beloved,” Schmidt wrote. “But since the purchase of CBS News by the Ellison family, another word belongs on the list: Sabotaged.”
Schmidt added that the program has been “assaulted with malicious intent by new corporate leadership that appears determined to gut one of the last remaining institutions in American journalism in order to satisfy a corrupt political arrangement with Donald Trump.”
He continued, “The destruction isn’t accidental. It’s deliberate. It’s strategic. It’s ideological. It’s transactional.” Instead of being a serious program where facts and credibility were valued, it has instead started to pride itself on pleasing the president.
“That is what is being destroyed for no reason beyond the insatiability of Trump’s ego," Schmidt concluded.
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