60 Minutes in new turmoil as CBS News head slaps aside longtime anchor for big interview

CBS News chief Bari Weiss has intensified her contentious overhaul of "60 Minutes," directly inserting herself into high-profile booking decisions and pushing aside longtime correspondent Lesley Stahl — a move that has sparked internal hostility and raised questions about whether the legendary outlet is being dismantled from within.

According to media watchdog Status, Stahl had been pursuing an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for months. However, Weiss personally stepped in and handed the interview to Major Garrett — a CBS News correspondent who does not work for "60 Minutes" and whose only dedicated platform is on the network's little-watched streaming service.

"But behind the scenes, Status has learned that famed '60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stahl had also been gunning for the interview but was upstaged by CBS News boss Bari Weiss, who booked Netanyahu herself and handed the interview to Garrett," Oliver Darcy of Status is reporting. "The move sparked hostility and amplified the already strained relationship between Weiss and the reporting team at the iconic newsmagazine."

The report notes that a CBS News spokesperson did not dispute the reporting but defended the decision, telling Status: "It's the editor in chief's job to make decisions about bookings and interviews. Major is a world-class journalist and did a tough, fair, and newsmaking interview."

Weiss' intervention into booking decisions extends beyond the Netanyahu interview. In March, she personally booked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for a CBS News interview and assigned it to Garrett, directing it to air on "60 Minutes" — highly unusual for a program that typically reserves major interviews for its own correspondents.

Internal sentiment at "60 Minutes" reflects deep frustration, the report states. When correspondents learned Netanyahu had agreed to appear on the program but the assignment went to Garrett instead of Stahl, tensions escalated rapidly. The feeling inside was that Netanyahu had effectively circumvented Stahl and the "60 Minutes" team — with Weiss facilitating the end-run by providing an interviewer he apparently found more agreeable.

According to Darcy, the decisions reveal how Weiss fundamentally views "60 Minutes": not as an autonomous program with its own traditions and correspondent hierarchy, but as a high-profile platform for CBS News' broader reporting portfolio and does not subscribe to the idea that "60 Minutes" must maintain rigid internal traditions and is expected to dismantle many of them.

Darcy observed that the approach risks undermining the program's identity. "60 Minutes" has maintained its stature and ratings dominance for decades precisely because of institutional traditions and correspondent prestige.

When the season finale airs Sunday night, it may mark the end of "60 Minutes" as it has long been known inside CBS News, he predicted.