Megyn Kelly: CBS News On-Air Talent Don’t Like Bari Weiss, Don’t Appreciate BS Happening at “60 Minutes”
SiriusXM ‘Megyn Kelly Show,’ host Megyn Kelly is joined by Maureen Callahan, host of The Nerve, to discuss the turmoil at CBS News following the firing of Scott Pelley, criticism of Bari Weiss’ leadership and management style, the unfolding PR disaster, Tony Dokoupil’s emotional farewell to Pelley, and more.
MEGYN KELLY:So Bari goes in there, and one of the first things she does is steals an on-air opportunity from one of the correspondents by doing that town hall with Erika Kirk, which bombed. I’m sorry, but there is – I’ve said this before – more to broadcast journalism than just the journalism piece. Bari, with all due respect, is not a television personality at all in any way. She’s not, and she failed. It was a miserable exchange… You could make an interesting interview with her, you know what I mean, like you could definitely go to very, but Bari chose her favorite issues and tried to zero in on those without realizing those don’t have mass appeal, and also stole the on-air opportunity from an on-air talent. You never saw Roger Ailes doing his own interview, you didn’t see Chris Licht or Jeff Zucker, the bosses at CNN, go take the big interviews from Anderson Cooper or Kaitlin Collins. Most people have no idea who’s been running MSNBC all these years, because that person would never swoop in and do the job of the on-air talent. Bari Weiss did that because Bari Weiss wants to be a star, like you said, and I’m sorry. Whatever you think of Bari Weiss, let me tell you that the on-air talent don’t like her, and they don’t appreciate this bullshit. So she swoops in, she’s gonna rule with an iron fist. There’s a report out today that she said to David Ellison, the son of Larry, What’s your, what’s your tolerance for pain, and he said hi, and so they fired Scott Pelley. Then played the tough guy, like, yeah, yo bitch, you’re out of here, Scott Pelley. And no one’s crying any tears over Scott Pelley, but on the on the heels of firing Sharon Alfonsi, the other woman, the executive producer… so three women, by the way, last week fired in one fell swoop. Then Scott Pelley, that’s four, in seven days, and he came out. Scott Pelley said that he said to Bari in front of the staff, “Why did you fire the executive producer of the show? And she was like, I’m not answering that question. Okay, you can do that. You can say, I don’t owe anybody an explanation. He’s like, why do you fire Sharon? I’m not answering that question. Why’d you buy that? I’m not answering that question. You can play hardball all you want. What is that going to do to the existing morale within CBS News? Within 60 Minutes? It’s going to make everyone hate you. You won’t even say why…that’s their colleague with whom they’ve been building this show now for many months during a tumultuous time, and all they know is you’ve canned her. It makes everybody feel unsteady. I’m sorry, but there’s a way to handle people, and she doesn’t know what it is, and clearly neither do the Ellisons.
