'Fire them!' Stephen Miller flips out at CBS 'revolt' over shelved '60 minutes' report
Senior White House adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller blew a gasket on Fox News Tuesday, amid reporting of internal anger at CBS after newly-installed right-wing network chief Bari Weiss put a hold on a long-in-the-works "60 Minutes" investigation into the horrific conditions at the Salvadoran CECOT megaprison where President Donald Trump has shipped hundreds of migrants.
"Every one of those producers at '60 Minutes' engaged in this revolt, fire them," shouted Miller, an anti-immigrant fanatic known to crib Nazi Germany in his speeches. "Clean house, fire them. That's what I say."
Weiss, who was appointed as part of a Trump administration-approved merger deal between CBS' parent company Paramount and Skydance, claimed the story needed further review because the Trump administration had not provided comment, even though they were afforded the opportunity to, and because the story didn't give equal billing to claims by the Trump administration that the mass deportation flights were legal, even though the Supreme Court has already ruled unanimously they were not.
This decision triggered an outcry by "60 Minutes" staff, with CBS anchor Scott Pelley pointing out that Weiss had not even properly reviewed the segment before blocking it, and Sharyn Alfonsi, the reporter behind the story, calling out Weiss' logic, saying, “Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a 'kill switch'' for any reporting they find inconvenient."
Weiss has fired back, saying that "The only newsroom that I'm interested in running is one where we are able to have contentious disagreements about the thorniest of editorial matters, and do so with respect."
Shortly after the reports that the "60 Minutes" segment had been blocked, it was actually leaked online after it accidentally was aired on a Canadian network. The segment features a number of interviews with migrants who were locked in torturous environments, including at least one person who evidently had not committed any crime or broken any U.S. law before being rounded up.