CBS News’ venerated news magazine program, 60 Minutes, has drawn the ire of President Donald Trump both before and after the recent sale of Paramount, CBS’s parent company, to Skydance, leaving it in control of the Trump-friendly Ellison family. Trump had sued CBS over a segment with Kamala Harris that was edited, a suit that was later settled, allegedly with the implication that the Trump Administration would reject the merger in the absence of any such settlement.
CBS News is now under the control of journalist Bari Weiss, and despite what looks like a rightward tilt, Trump complained last week that 60 Minutes is worse now than before the takeover.
And now, in a very curious and rare move, 60 Minutes announced Sunday afternoon that a certain segment would not air as scheduled, just hours before it was set to be featured.
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) December 21, 2025
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Per The Daily Beast, 60 Minutes “abruptly pushed back an episode about a notorious El Salvador megaprison that houses deportees from the United States.” The segment was to cover The Terrorism Confinement Center—dubbed CECOT or Terrorism Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo in Spanish,” but 60 Minutes said that it will instead air another time.
CBS had aired a promotion for the segment earlier:
This is the now deleted teaser for the 60 Minutes report that was supposed to air tonight on the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador that Donald Trump sent hundreds of migrants to. CBS is officially a mouthpiece for the Trump administration thanks to Bari Weiss https://t.co/uRoFh2YdFo pic.twitter.com/aE1cbOXxAl
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) December 21, 2025
One report indicated that such a move is unprecedented in the show’s history:
a source inside CBS News tells me a move like this is “effectively unprecedented” in the history of 60 Minutes.
60 stories often take several weeks, if not MONTHS, to produce.
the idea of killing a finished piece (that you’ve already been promoting) hours before air is insane https://t.co/sxOKDOuOq4
— Peter Twinklage (@PeterTwinklage) December 22, 2025
Many social media users also pointed out how similar the situation is to the plot of the 1999 movie The Insider, which told a story from early in the 1990s when Big Tobacco put pressure on CBS News to not air a 60 Minutes interview with a tobacco whistleblower:
Without a doubt… The Insider. My 2nd fave Michael Mann movie. Fantastic!!!
This was a massive story. I remember it. The collapse of “Big Tobacco.” The height of corporate malfeasance. 60 Minutes and Mike Wallace’s reputations never fully recovered from it. Amazing film! pic.twitter.com/HtFF2CfmrX— Dan Coope (@DanCoope79) September 1, 2025
Photo courtesy of an X screenshot.
