Jesse Watters says CBS is cleaning house after | TV Shows

The abrupt firing of veteran CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes has drawn sharp feedback from Fox News host Jesse Watters, who declared Tuesday that CBS is “cleaning house” under new management.

Pelley was terminated from CBS after confronting the show’s newly appointed govt producer, Nick Bilton, during an all-staff assembly on Monday, Bilton’s first day on the job.

According to a number of stories, Pelley used the introductory gathering to unleash a broadside against CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, telling the room she was destroying this system. The news follows Watters being slammed for Democrats placing religion in ‘Nipple Nazi’ Graham Platner.

“She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” Pelley said. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”

Bilton notified Pelley of his termination in a letter Tuesday night, writing, “Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt.”

A separate memo to the 60 Minutes employees acknowledged, “I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly. I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.”

In his own assertion, Pelley disputed that depiction.

“60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause,” he said. “Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience.”

Pelley’s termination follows last week’s sudden dismissal of the show’s govt producer, govt editor, and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, all let go without acknowledged trigger.

CBS executives had tried to meet privately with Pelley after those firings, sources said, but had been unsuccessful until Tuesday, when Weiss conveyed that his conduct was unacceptable.

A few staffers applauded Pelley’s feedback during Monday’s assembly, Watters famous, but community executives had been unmoved.

Pelley, who joined CBS News in 1989 and anchored the CBS Evening News from 2011 to 2017, has been a 60 Minutes correspondent since 2004.

Pelley’s departure leaves this system with just three full-time correspondents, Lesley Stahl, Bill, Whitaker, and L. Jon Wertheim, months before the launch of its 59th season.

Longtime 60 Minutes producer Rome Hartman called Pelley “among the all-time greats of CBS News,” while former govt producer Jeff Fager said Pelley was “the heart and soul of 60 Minutes.”

“He’s the present-day Mike Wallace of the program,” Fager said. “I wouldn’t want to be in charge without him.”