White House Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller fired back after a 60 Minutes correspondent accused CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of yanking a story about the Trump administration’s deportation of hundreds of immigrants to CECOT for “political reasons.”
“This is another pathetic 60 Minutes hatchet job. They are trying to tell sob stories about Tren de Aragua gang members who drill holes in people’s hands, who rape and murder little girls?” Miller said.
“You actually have somebody, from the outside, new, who’s trying to actually act like an adult over at 60 Minutes and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, you failed to talk to the administration, you failed to put in any sort of context, whatsoever, for the story, and so she’s decided to pause the story and now there’s an open revolt at 60 Minutes,” Fox News host Charles Hurt said to Miller. “First of all, were you contacted at all about this package, and what do you make of all of it?”
“I don’t remember anybody reaching out to me,” Miller replied. “Of course, as you know people put things at the comms inboxes and general feedback comments, but I don’t remember getting anything.”
“But more fundamentally, this is another pathetic 60 Minutes hatchet job,” he continued. “They are trying to tell sob stories about Tren de Aragua gang members who drill holes in people’s hands, who rape and murder little girls? This is the gang who kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered Jocelyn Nungaray. Remember her? That precious 12-year-old girl from Texas who was taken from her mom and went through horrors none of us can imagine?”
“And you have these 60 Minute producers who are living in comfort and security in their West End condos trying to make us feel sympathetic for these monsters?” he asked rhetorically. “Have you seen the tattoos, the face tattoos, the body tattoos on these killers? Would one 60 Minutes producer or writer agree to spend 30 minutes — I’ll make a deal. We will pick one person at random that we sent to CECOT, just a random lottery drawing, and they will spend one day, overnight, in your apartment.”
“Who is taking that deal at 60 Minutes? Nobody, because they know that these are monsters who got exactly what they deserved,” he declared. “Because under President Trump, we are not going to let little girls get raped and murdered anymore. And every one of those producers at 60 Minutes engaged in this revolt, fire them. Clean house, fire them. That’s what I say, Charlie.”
“And yet, somehow, they’re the compassionate ones and you’re the mean ones. But we’re glad you’re the mean ones and getting the job done,” Hurt concluded.
“I held that story because it was not ready,” Weiss said, adding that the story had been reported by other news organizations. “The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment in this prison.”
The Daily Wire previously reported:
Weiss prevented the segment on El Salvador’s CECOT prison from airing on Sunday over concerns that the piece lacked important information, such as “the Trump administration’s argument for why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT.” She stated in a memo to CBS News staffers:
Last month, many outlets, most notably The New York Times, exposed the horrific conditions at CECOT. Our story presents more of these powerful testimonies—and putting those accounts into the public record is valuable in and of itself. But if we’re going to run another story about a topic that has by now been much-covered, we need to advance it. Among the ways to do so: does anyone in the administration or anyone prominent who defended the use of the Alien Enemies Act now regret it in light of what these Venezuelans endured at CECOT? That’s a question I’d like to see asked and answered.”
“At present, we do not present the administration’s argument for why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT. What we have is Karoline Leavitt’s soundbite claiming they are evildoers in America (rapists, murderers, etc.). But isn’t there much more to ask in light of the torture that we are revealing?” Weiss asked. “Tom Homan and Stephen Miller don’t tend to be shy. I realize we’ve emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record.”
In her third point, Weiss criticized one of the angles of the “60 Minutes” segment, arguing that it focused too much on the illegal immigrants sent to CECOT who do not have criminal histories and not enough on the violent criminals who have been removed from America.
“The data we present paints an incongruent picture. Of the 252 Venezuelans sent to CECOT, we say nearly half have no criminal histories. In other words, more than half do have criminal histories. We should spend a beat explaining this,” Weiss said. “We then say that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in America for violent offenses. But what about charged? My point is that we should include as much as we can possibly know and understand about these individuals.”
Zach Jewell contributed to this story.
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