Scott Pelley, CBS News, and Trump's Iran Crisis: Halperin Unfiltered

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**Michael Smerconish** (1:01)
Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:06)
Mark Halpern is the host of the Next Up Podcast and I highly recommend episode number 105 featuring Rich Lowry and Michael Smerconich. They are his guests on episode 105 of Next Up.
This is Mark Halpern. Thank you for having me. That was fun.

**Mark Halperin** (1:27)
Thank you for being on and for promoting the episode. A lot of good feedback on both the Lowry and Smerconish segments.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:35)
So you do that rapid fire, like there's no downtime with Mark Halpern on Next Up. Your style is, hey, let's go bang, bang, bang. Let's talk about Scott Pelley. Let's talk about Graham Plattner. Let's get right to it.

**Mark Halperin** (1:50)
You're my role model, not NPR. Another laid back about me.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:57)
Can I sort of pick your pocket a little bit and repeat some of the conversation about Scott Pelley, except this time I'll turn the tables and ask you to analyze that which was said and the way in which it was received?

**Mark Halperin** (2:12)
Which part of the Pelley drama are we talking about?

**Michael Smerconish** (2:15)
The whole fact of the sit down with The New York Times and what he explained from his perspective and the way in which the media then reported on that which he had said.

**Mark Halperin** (2:25)
You know, it's a great comment in The Wall Street Journal today that says it's a weird situation because Pelley didn't want to leave the show and the producers didn't and the managers didn't want him to leave and yet he left because the level of insubordination to to refuse to meet with your bosses in private and then to show up at a meeting with your bosses and trash them and say they're unqualified. It's hard to imagine the mentality of someone who thinks that that is a way to keep your job.
Then in addition, to level accusations of political bias or interference in this process, and then to come up with really just measly examples, at least as far as he illustrated them or didn't illustrate them.
There's additional signs since you and I spoke that CBS News and Paramount and the folks still at 60 Minutes are trying to work things out and trying to get back to producing television. CBS 60 Minutes is an extraordinary tradition, and they produce lots of quality programming. But their political programming is really what has gotten all the attention when they do segments on politics. Any fair-minded person would say their political segments for several decades have been pro-Democrat and anti-Republican for the most part. So I haven't heard much commentary say Barry Weiss is interfering in an improper way with pieces about a concert pianist or a community in Peru that makes baskets out of pigs. It's all just about their coverage of Donald Trump, and that's not a very big part of what 60 Minutes does. So Scott Pelley decided to die on the hill of saying, it's okay for me to attack my bosses and level baseless accusations. And I think now whatever happens to him going forward, I think it'd be good for the program, good for the people who work there to get back to making donuts as opposed to insulting their bosses in big meetings.

**Michael Smerconish** (4:27)
I'm trying to pay close attention to the way in which Barry Weiss is serving as editor-in-chief of CBS News. And relative to Pelley, I was curious to hear, okay, how did she try and influence the end product?
Two different episodes, one was C-Cut, that was the incarceration and the El Salvador in jail, I guess I should say, but the shootings in Minneapolis. The shootings in Minneapolis. And what I heard, this is perhaps too inside, but what I heard Scott Pelley say is that Barry Weiss wanted a particular perspective reflected in the 60 Minutes coverage. And my qualm with Pelley is that he seemed to suggest like there was a definitive view. I looked at all those camera angles and, you know, depending on which angle you were looking at, told a different story about Renee Good. I guess what I'm trying to say, Mark, is I didn't find anything particularly offensive about what Barry Weiss was asking him to do, which I thought was to provide balance to that very complicated issue.