CBS postpones '60 Minutes' story on Trump deportees at the last minute

CBS News pulled a “60 Minutes” report about the Trump administration sending detainees to a maximum security “mega prison” in El Salvador just hours before its scheduled broadcast Sunday.

The broadcaster said Sunday that the segment would air at a future date, an unusual move that drew criticism from the correspondent behind the reporting.

“The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated,” the news magazine series posted on social media just three hours before airtime. “Our report ‘Inside CECOT’ will air in a future broadcast.”

In a statement obtained by NBC News, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss said: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be.”

“Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason—that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices—happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready,” she added.

Weiss addressed the matter during the newsroom’s Monday morning editorial conference call, according to a source, saying in part that the segment did not contain enough new information.

“While the story presented powerful testimony of torture at CECOT, it did not advance the ball — the Times and other outlets have previously done similar work,” Weiss said, referring to The New York Times.

“The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment at this prison. To run a story on this subject two months later, we need to do more. And this is ‘60 Minutes.’ We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera,” she added, according to a transcript of her remarks shared with NBC News.

“Our viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or anything else. That’s my north star and I hope it’s yours, too,” Weiss said in closing.

The network had already released on air and online a preview of the segment, which profiled detainees who were deported from the United States to El Salvador’s notorious Center for the Confinement of Terrorism, or CECOT.

In one clip, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi said the prisoners had been “shackled, paraded in front of cameras,” adding that they had endured “four months of hell” at the facility.

The Trump administration sent about 250 Venezuelan men to CECOT in March and has accused them of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Many of the men and some of their families and attorneys have denied the claim.

By early Monday, a "60 Minutes" webpage promoting the report had been removed. Instead, it read: “The page cannot be found. The page may have been removed, had its name changed, or is just temporarily unavailable.”

Alfonsi accused the network of pulling the segment for “political” reasons, according to a private note sent to CBS colleagues that was reported by the Times.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi wrote in the note, according to the Times, which said it had obtained a copy.

“It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one,” she said in the note, according to the Times.

When asked for further comment by the newspaper Sunday night, Alfonsi said: “I refer all questions to Bari Weiss.”

Alfonsi did not immediately respond to NBC News' requests for comment Monday.

The furor over the segment was the latest in a string of controversies for CBS and its parent company, the newly formed Paramount Skydance.

President Donald Trump last year filed a lawsuit against Paramount, accusing “60 Minutes” of deceptively editing an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. CBS denied the claim. Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit for $16 million.

Skydance chief David Ellison has sought to reshape the news business, appointing Weiss — a television newcomer and prominent critic of the traditional news media — as top editor after acquiring her outlet, The Free Press.

In seeking federal approval of the merger with Paramount, Skydance vowed to embrace “diverse viewpoints” and represent “the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.”

Ellison is separately making a hostile bid to acquire the media giant Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. Warner Bros. Discovery has already accepted an offer from Netflix in a deal valued $82.7 billion. Both transactions would require approval from federal regulators.

Trump has close ties to Ellison's father, billionaire technology mogul Larry Ellison, though in recent weeks the president has publicly expressed frustration with the direction of "60 Minutes" under Paramount's new corporate leadership.

"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," Trump said in a Dec. 16 post on Truth Social. "If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!"

CBS News' decision to hold the "60 Minutes" story drew criticism from some Democratic lawmakers.

“What is happening to CBS is a terrible embarrassment and if executives think they can build shareholder value by avoiding journalism that might offend the Mad King they are about to learn a tough lesson,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said on X.

The decision “does merit an explanation right away. It’s a pretty big deal to pull a story at the request of the White House,” he added.

NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment.