A ‘60 Minutes’ story was officially pulled from air just hours before it was set to air. The episode promised to explore allegations of abuse and torture of deportees sent by the Trump administration to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a highly controversial detention center located in El Salvador. The episode highlights exclusive interviews of people deported from the U.S. to CECOT.
The report was written by CBS journalist and ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. The episode described and showed conditions that prisoners were living in. Suddenly, just hours before it was set to air, CBS pulled it from television. Alfonsi stated that the report “was screened five times and approved by both CBS attorneys.” The episode had been screened and approved by staff and crew at CBS prior to airing. Alfonsi reported that she learned on Saturday of this decision, and reached out to Bari Weiss, CBS News’ new editor-in-chief, for a meeting. Weiss never got back to Alfonsi about her choice.
The episode was publicly announced Dec. 19, with it pulled just three days later on Dec. 21. According to Brian Stelter, a CNN Chief Media Correspondent, canceling an episode that was publicly announced and promoted days before it is set to air is “virtually unheard of.” Weiss stated that the episode would run at a later time, whenever the Trump administration gave a statement. Alfonsi sent out an email to staff Sunday night stating that the episode was removed not because of an editorial call, but a political decision. The email sent out was leaked and posted on X by Brian Stelter.
The removal and then ultimate leaking of this episode caused turmoil in the media. Alfonsi reported in her email, “Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.” It is implied that this report was a very critical story about the Trump administration, and the decision to pull this story was for CBS to avoid backlash from Trump and his supporters.
David Ellison, son of longtime Trump-supporter Larry Ellison, purchased Paramount in August. Ellison promised that moving forward, CBS would display ideas of multiple perspectives throughout America. In 2024, Paramount paid over $16 million to settle a lawsuit Trump filed over a ‘60 Minutes’ episode featuring Kamala Harris, where he claimed gave Harris a misrepresented view, where the segment purposefully made her look like a better President. However, on Dec 16, Trump posted a statement on Truth Social, “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!”
CBS received criticism for pulling the episode from Democratic politicians as well. Democratic Senator Ed Markey said, “This is what government censorship looks like: Trump approved the Paramount-Skydance merger. A few months later, CBS’s new editor in chief kills a deeply reported story critical of Trump. A sad day for 60 Minutes and journalism.”
According to Media Bias/Fact Check, CBS is now rated “Right-Center Biased in this update due to emerging editorial decisions and leadership influence under Bari Weiss that suggest a shift away from its historically left-center orientation.”
Even though CBS tried to ensure the episode was not released publicly, the episode did actually end up airing, just in Canada. The episode appeared on a streaming app owned by Canada’s Global Television Network. The network corrected the error, but not fast enough. Clips of the segment were posted online and within hours the videos went viral on platforms such as X and Reddit.
The special features interviews from men who were imprisoned at CECOT. Luis Muñoz Pinto, a Venezuelan college student described how he was treated at CECOT, “Four guards grabbed me, and they beat me until I bled [to] the point of agony. They knocked our faces against the wall. That was when they broke one of my teeth.” Pinto was arrested in 2024 at his appointment with the US Border Protection in California. He told Alfonsi that he had no criminal record, stating he “Never even had a traffic ticket.” The horrific living conditions are also highlighted in the segment: bunk beds stacked on top of one another, with no pillows or blankets. The lights are kept on 24 hours a day, and prisoners have zero access to clean water.
The ‘60 Minutes’ episode was never supposed to be about politics; it solely focused on the prisoners held at CECOT. In Alfonsi’s memo regarding the decision to pull the story, she spoke on the released deportees reminding us of what the story is really about: “These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”
