CBS journalist Scott Pelley launched into a fierce condemnation of President Donald Trump during a university commencement speech.
The news anchor rebuked the Trump administration for attempting to root out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring policies from federal agencies, while speaking at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The 60 Minutes presenter, 67, told his audience of graduates and their families: “In this moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.”
Delivering his address in theatrical fashion, frequently raising his arms to the heavens like an evangelical pastor, Pelley continued: “Insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts.
“The fear to speak... in America,” he added, stressing the word to emphasize his horror and dismay in the speech on May 19. “Power can rewrite history, with grotesque, false narratives. They can make criminals heroes, and heroes criminals.
“Power can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. Diversity is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this.”
A clip of the anchor’s performance was derided by conservative commentators as it circulated on social media, where he was dismissed as “angry and unhinged” and a “self-important, sermonizing propagandist.”
Pelley’s frustration came at a fraught moment for American media and academia, two sectors that are being targeted by the Trump administration as part of a new culture war actively working to stamp out liberal dissent.
The president is currently suing CBS for $20bn after accusing 60 Minutes, the storied investigative news program that has run since 1968, of engaging in “unlawful and illegal behavior” by favorably editing an interview with his election rival Kamala Harris last year.
The situation caused the show’s executive producer Bill Owens to leave his role last month complaining of a lack of “journalistic independence” as a result of increasing corporate oversight, prompting Pelley in turn to admonish CBS’s parent company Paramount on air.
Elsewhere, Trump has gone to war with Harvard University, threatening to withdraw federal funding unless it bows to his ideological demands and moving last week to ban the Ivy League institution from accepting international students, prompting Harvard to file a lawsuit in retaliation.
The president doubled down on his demand for a list of Harvard’s foreign students on Monday, despite the U.S. government already holding that information, insisting he wanted to “determine... how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our country.”
Like Pelley, Trump himself was criticized over a graduation ceremony speech at the weekend after he regaled students at West Point, America’s top military academy, with anecdotes about “trophy” wives, yachts, golfer Gary Player’s short stature, the “great late” Al Capone and Army drag shows before leaving without shaking the hands of the honorees.
His eccentric performance at the lectern led Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett to call on the president’s fellow Republicans to join her in questioning his mental fitness for office, urging them to have the courage to speak out.
