During an interview with CBS Evening News, Donald Trump claimed new anchor Tony Dokoupil wouldn’t have his job if his opponent in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris, had won.
“A year and a half ago, our country was dead,” he argued. “We had a dead country. You wouldn’t have a job right now. If she got in, you probably wouldn’t have a job right now… You wouldn’t have this job, certainly whatever the hell they’re paying you.”
CBS is now controlled by the family of Larry Ellison, a friend of the president, and one of the world’s richest people, following the takeover of Paramount Global, its parent company, last year.
David Ellison, son of Larry, and chief executive of CBS owner Paramount Skydance, swiftly recruited the heterodox writer Bari Weiss to shake up CBS News. In one of her first big moves as editor-in-chief, Weiss tapped the 45-year-old Dokoupil to anchor the Evening News, transforming him into one of the faces of the network. His success – or failure – as anchor of the third-place show will impact how Weiss’s tenure is ultimately viewed.
Dokoupil was scheduled to begin as anchor of the struggling evening news show on 5 January but instead came on air two days earlier after the US incursion into Venezuela.
The US president is a major booking for Dokoupil, who faced scrutiny last week for his handling of interviews with some members of Trump’s administration, including a 4 January interview with the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, and a 7 January sit-down with border “czar” Tom Homan.
Trump on Tuesday also talked about David Ellison, who is currently trying to expand his media empire via a hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, the media conglomerate behind CNN, HBO and the storied movie studios.
Ellison has a good relationship with the Trump administration, and some in the White House have expressed a preference for him and his father to beat out Netflix, which has a deal in place with Warner Bros Discovery to buy many of its prized assets.
But had Trump lost the election, “your boss, who is an amazing guy, might be bust”, he told Dokoupil.
At the end of the interview, which was conducted at a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, Dokoupil gently pushed back Trump’s comments about his employment.
“For the record, I do think I’d have this job even if the other guys won,” he said. Trump then retorted: “Yeah, but at a lesser salary.”
According to sources familiar with the broadcast, Trump then called Dokoupil a “wise guy”, though that comment was not aired.
While it’s normal for television news networks to edit down interviews with newsmakers, CBS News has faced scrutiny in the past for editing decisions, including the handling of a 60 Minutes interview with then vice-president Harris in October 2024 that led to a major lawsuit from Trump.
CBS ultimately settled with him and agreed to pay $16m, despite many legal experts widely dismissing the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, shortly before the Ellisons won regulatory approval for their takeover of its owner Paramount.
The network also edited down a 60 Minutes interview of Trump by correspondent Norah O’Donnell conducted in November, though she got far more time with Trump than Dokoupil did on Tuesday.
Recently, Weiss opted to postpone a 60 Minutes segment about the treatment of Venezuelans sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, arguing internally that the story needed additional reporting.
On Sunday, during the CBS broadcast of the Golden Globes, host Nikki Glaser ribbed the network by saying that “the award for most editing goes to … CBS News”.
Trump’s trip to Detroit lined up perfectly for the CBS Evening News, which was already scheduled to broadcast from the city as part of a cross-country tour to reintroduce the show and its new host.
At the end of the show, Dokoupil seemed to address some of the criticism it has gotten since it launched. “You may not agree with everything you hear on this broadcast,” he said, “but we trust you to listen, and we trust you to decide for yourself.”
