Looking to make a splash during her first few weeks as CBS News’ editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss has been eyeing a few big names to potentially helm the network’s flagship evening program – including Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier, two sources familiar with the matter told The Independent.
Weiss’ interest in poaching Baier from Fox News to lead CBS Evening News was first reported by Status News.
Since officially arriving as the Tiffany Network’s newsroom leader earlier this month, Weiss – the founder of anti-woke digital outlet The Free Press, which was also purchased by CBS’s parent company Paramount – Weiss has quickly made her presence felt at the broadcast news outlet.
Besides causing staffers to literally roll their eyes at her Sorkinesque battle cry and sparking confusion with a DOGE-style missive ordering employees to describe their workdays amid pending layoffs, Weiss has involved herself in the network’s booking process – such as setting up morning anchor Tony Dokoupil’s exclusive interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As the network’s coverage starts to echo her sensibilities, including her sister and Free Press co-founder promoting her articles on air, Weiss has also sought to recruit ideological allies to help carry out her vision of “radically centrist” contrarianism.
Shortly after she was installed as the network’s top editor, for instance, she brought on her close friend and former New York Times colleague Adam Rubenstein to serve as her deputy editor. Additionally, as Status first reported, Weiss has recently been in conversations with conservative journalist Catherine Herridge, the longtime Fox News reporter who was let go by CBS News last year.
At the top of her list of objectives, however, is reshaping the network’s perennially third-place evening news broadcast – which already underwent a facelift in the past year. And it appears she is set on getting a marquee name to take over the CBS Evening News anchor seat.
According to Status, Weiss has expressed interest in a number of external candidates to take over the nightly show, including one eye-popping name – Bret Baier. In conversations with associates at the network, she has mentioned bringing the Fox News star into the CBS family, most likely for the marquee weeknight anchor spot.
Baier, meanwhile, is just one of several names that Weiss has discussed with network executives and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski as possible candidates to lead the evening program.
The Independent has learned that longtime CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is another top talent that Weiss has circled as a potential candidate for the show. According to two sources at the network, she has said that Cooper would be one of her top targets. Besides his primetime anchoring duties at CNN, Cooper is also a correspondent for CBS News’ Sunday newsmagazine 60 Minutes, one of the top-rated shows on broadcast television.
The Independent has reached out to representatives for CBS News and CNN for comment. Fox News declined to comment.
Still, landing either Cooper or Baier could be a difficult task for Weiss, even if they wanted to leave their current situations. For starters, during an era where payrolls are being slashed across the news industry, both men rake in massive salaries – with Baier making $14 million annually while Cooper’s annual salary is reportedly $18 million.
On top of that, Baier recently signed a contract extension with Fox and is locked up through 2028 – meaning he’d need Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch to let him out of his deal to decamp for a network rival, which seems extremely unlikely.
Incidentally, Weiss’ grand idea to bring in three former Secretaries of State to sit down for a televised summit on the Israel ceasefire agreement was scuttled in part because one of the planned participants, Mike Pompeo, is a paid Fox News analyst. CBS News staffers have expressed trepidation about Weiss leading the network because of her lack of broadcast journalism experience.
As for Cooper, there have been rumblings that he could be looking to leave CNN after he switched agents earlier this year – though that move could be more of a response to CNN’s cost-cutting and the veteran anchor hoping to avoid a salary “haircut.”
Still, even if Cooper is considering a departure from CNN in the near future, one source with knowledge of the situation told The Independent that the 58-year-old veteran journalist has made it clear to others that he is “not interested” in taking on the CBS Evening News seat.
Weiss, though, isn’t just eyeing another network’s star to jump into the evening news anchor spot. She is also considering bringing back Norah O’Donnell, who stepped down in January and was replaced by the two-man anchor team of John Dickerson and Maurice Dubois. Dokoupil, whom The Free Press vehemently defended after the network reprimanded him last year for his combative interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates over Gaza, is also in the mix.
As Status News’ Oliver Darcy noted, the speculation around Baier further suggests the editorial direction Ellison wants to take the news network. Besides hiring Weiss and purchasing The Free Press, the media mogul has also brought on a former Trump appointee to serve as CBS News’ ombudsman and revamped the network’s on-air editing guidelines following complaints from the White House.
While Baier “occasionally scrutinizes Donald Trump with flashes of mild skepticism,” Darcy asserted that the Fox News anchor’s “program mostly operates within the gravitational pull of the MAGA movement” as it “regularly features dishonest right-wing pundits who mislead the audience and minimize Trump's” actions and behavior.
“In other words, he’s a journalist who can nod to the establishment while sparing Trump and his MAGA movement from serious scrutiny,” he added. “That hasn’t aligned with traditional CBS News standards, but it would fit neatly within Weiss’ editorial sensibilities.”
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