How the National Park Service Is Deleting American History; The New York Times, January 23, 2026

Maxine Joselow and Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times; How the National Park Service Is Deleting American History

[Kip Currier: Trump 2.0's ongoing efforts to censor and erase history and science are appallingly Orwellian, yet also childishly regressive and unevolved.

When this modern Dark Age of willful ignorance and information suppression has passed, the uncomfortable truths, silenced voices, and inescapable facts will need to be restored to our collective historical record and cultural heritage institutions.]

[Excerpt]

"At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the Trump administration took down an exhibit on the contradiction between President George Washington’s enslavement of people and the Declaration of Independence’s promise of liberty.

At Muir Woods National Monument in California, the administration dismantled a plaque about how the tallest trees on the planet could help store carbon dioxide and slow the Earth’s dangerous warming.

And at Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts, Trump officials ordered the National Park Service to stop showing films about the women and immigrants who once toiled in the city’s textile mills.

Across the country, Park Service workers have started taking down plaques, films and other materials in connection with a directive from President Trump to remove or rewrite content that may “disparage Americans” or promote “corrosive ideology.”"

‘60 Minutes’ is finally airing the shelved ‘Inside CECOT’ segment; CNN, January 18, 2026

Brian Stelter, CNN ; ‘60 Minutes’ is finally airing the shelved ‘Inside CECOT’ segment

"Nearly a month after CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss triggered a scandal by shelving a “60 Minutes” story about Venezuelan men deported by the US to a hellish prison in El Salvador, the story is airing on Sunday evening.

Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who defended the story and alleged “corporate censorship” by Weiss last month, recorded a new beginning and ending to the segment to incorporate the additions Weiss wanted.

But the report itself, titled “Inside CECOT,” remained the same as it was on the day Weiss delayed it."

Alabama library denied funding because it won’t move classic book ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’; AL.com, January 15, 2026

 

• Williesha Morris

, AL.com; Alabama library denied funding because it won’t move classic book ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

"In a meeting fraught with crosstalk and tension, the Alabama Public Library Service board voted to withhold state funding to the Fairhope Public Library. The library kept some flagged books, including “The Handmaid’s Tale,” in its teen section instead of moving them to the adult’s section...

At issue is about $22,000 in state funding. Since the showdown began, the library has raised more than $100,000 in community donations. 

Fairhope librarians must move the following “sexually explicit” books to the adult section to receive state funding:

• “Beyond Magenta” by Susan Kuklin
• “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins
• “Doing” It by Hannah Witton
• “Identical” by Ellen Hopkins
• “Lighter Than My Shadow” by Katie Green
• “Shine” by Lauren Myracle
• “Sold” by Patricia McCormick
• “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood
• “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas
• “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky

Most of these books have appeared on banned book lists for years, including lists created by conservative groups like Clean Up Alabama and Moms for Liberty...

This is the first time that the state library board denied funding based on book placement. In 2024, the board decided to update the state code mandating libraries move books that were “inappropriate” for children to the adult section."

Texas A&M abruptly cancels ethics course over race, gender policy; The Texas Tribune, January 15, 2026

JESSICA PRIEST , The Texas Tribune; Texas A&M abruptly cancels ethics course over race, gender policy

"Texas A&M University canceled a graduate ethics course three days after the semester began, saying Professor Leonard Bright did not provide enough information to let administrators determine if the course meets new standards for discussing race and gender. 

Bright disputes that characterization.

The decision is distinct from earlier course changes at Texas A&M as the class had already met once before administrators canceled it."

Pentagon says it will ‘refocus’ Stars and Stripes content; Stars and Stripes, January 15, 2026

COREY DICKSTEIN, Stars and Stripes; Pentagon says it will ‘refocus’ Stars and Stripes content

[Kip Currier: Forward this Stars and Stripes article about Pete Hegseth's plans for the military newspaper to as many as possible. It's valuable perspective to hear from Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin and members of Congress.]

[Excerpt]

"The Pentagon said on social media Thursday it would take over editorial content decision-making for Stars and Stripes in a statement from the Defense Department’s top spokesman.

“The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters. We are bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top public affairs official and a close adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wrote in a statement posted to X. “We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”

The statement appears to challenge the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes, which while a part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity has long retained independence from editorial oversight from the Pentagon under a congressional mandate that it be governed by First Amendment principles.

The move was met with pushback from several Democratic senators, who accused the Pentagon of tampering with the newspaper’s reporting.

Stars and Stripes, which is dedicated to serving U.S. government personnel overseas, seeks to emulate the best practices of commercial news organizations in the United States. It is governed by Department of Defense Directive 5122.11. The directive states, among other key provisions, that “there shall be a free flow of news and information to its readership without news management or censorship.”

Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin, in a note to Stars and Stripes’ editorial staff across the globe Thursday, said the military deserves independent news.

“The people who risk their lives in defense of the Constitution have earned the right to the press freedoms of the First Amendment,” Slavin wrote. “We will not compromise on serving them with accurate and balanced coverage, holding military officials to account when called for.”

Stars and Stripes first appeared during the Civil War, and it has been continuously published since World War II. It is staffed by civilian and active-duty U.S. military reporters and editors who produce daily newspapers for American troops around the world and a website, stripes.com, which is updated with news 24 hours a day, seven days a week...

Parnell’s post came a day after a Washington Post report revealed that applicants for positions at Stars and Stripes were being asked how they would support President Donald Trump’s policies. The questionnaire appears on the USAJobs portal, the official website for federal hiring. Stars and Stripes was unaware of the questions until the Post inquired about them, organization leaders said.

The Pentagon statement comes several years after the Defense Department attempted to shut down Stars in Stripes in 2020, during Trump’s first administration."

Pentagon taking over Stars and Stripes to eliminate ‘woke distractions’; The Hill, January 15, 2026

 ELLEN MITCHELL , The Hill; Pentagon taking over Stars and Stripes to eliminate ‘woke distractions’

[Kip Currier: It's unfortunate but not surprising to see that Pete Hegseth, given his actions to date, is taking "editorial control" of the Stars and Stripes newspaper that was started by Union soldiers on November 9, 1861, in the midst of the Civil War.]

[Excerpt]

"The Pentagon announced Thursday it would take editorial control of independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes to refocus coverage on “warfighting” and remove “woke distractions.”

The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters,” top Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement posted to X. “We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted Parnell’s statement.

Part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity, Stars and Stripes has been editorially independent from Defense Department officials since a congressional mandate in the 1990s. The outlet’s mission statement states that it is “governed by the principles of the First Amendment.” 

In some form since the Civil War, Stars and Stripes has consistently reported on the military since World War II to an audience mostly of service members stationed overseas."

This Is No Way to Run a University; The New York Times, January 12, 2026

Greg Lukianoff, The New York Times; This Is No Way to Run a University

"Martin Peterson, a Texas A&M University philosophy professor, was presented last week with a choice straight out of a dystopian novel. To bring his class in line with a prohibition on course materials that “advocate race or gender ideology,” he could either censor the part of his course that included readings from Plato or he could teach a different class.

The case illustrates the extent to which campus censorship has run amok in Texas: If some of Plato’s texts can’t be taught in a college philosophy course, what, exactly, can be taught?"

Smithsonian removes Trump impeachment text as it swaps his portrait; The Washington Post, January 10, 2026

Samantha Chery

, 

Janay Kingsberry

 and 

Kelsey Ables

, The Washington Post; Smithsonian removes Trump impeachment text as it swaps his portrait

[Kip Currier: Trump 2.0's efforts to censor, distort, and propagandize history, as these Smithsonian instances illustrate, are appalling; but they're nothing the world hasn't experienced before from other despotic rulers throughout history who have striven to falsify and hide their conduct and crimes. 

The good news is that people like these reporters are documenting as many of these examples as possible and, at some future point, the historical record can be restored.

Moroever, as the article's comments frequently note, many, many people already know the truth about Trump's two impeachments, arraignments in four separate criminal cases, conviction for 34 felonies, etc. That knowledge can't be purged from the minds of the people who already know his character and actions.]

[Excerpt]

"The National Portrait Gallery removed a swath of text that mentioned President Donald Trump’s two impeachments and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection as it swapped out a prominent photo of him this week."

Trump’s assault on the Smithsonian: ‘The goal is to reframe the entire culture of the US’; The Guardian, January 8, 2026

Charlotte Higgins , The Guardian; Trump’s assault on the Smithsonian: ‘The goal is to reframe the entire culture of the US’

[Kip Currier: Informative reporting by The Guardian on Trump 2.0 efforts to whitewash and erase centuries of history and culture by imprinting one man's and one movement's views on the Smithsonian museums.

Share this with as many people as possible to raise awareness and promote advocacy for the historical integrity and unfiltered authenticity of museums within the Smithsonian Institution system.]

[Excerpt]

"Lonnie Bunch, in the meantime, is holding a delicate line. On 18 December, a new letter from the White House arrived for him. The Smithsonian had fallen short in providing the information requested on 12 August, it said. “We wish to be assured,” it continued, “that none of the leadership of the Smithsonian museums is confused about the fact that the United States has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world. The American people will have no patience for any museum that is diffident about America’s founding or otherwise uncomfortable conveying a positive view of American history.” Then came the threat. “As you may know, funds apportioned for the Smithsonian Institution are only available for use in a manner consistent with Executive Order 14253, ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,’ and the fulfilment of the requests set forth in our August 12, 2025 letter.”

Bunch wrote a note to all his staff the following day, quietly affirming, once more, the organisation’s autonomy. “For nearly 180 years, the Smithsonian has served our country as an independent and nonpartisan institution committed to its mission – the increase and diffusion of knowledge – for all Americans. As we all know, all content, programming, and curatorial decisions are made by the Smithsonian.”

With JD Vance on the board of regents, along with Republican members of Congress, the question hovers: how long will 73-year-old Bunch survive in his position? “Lonnie knows his time is short,” one DC museum director told me. “It’s a question of how he decides to go, and of which hill he chooses to die on.”"

Documentary ‘The Librarians’ explores book bans and the fight for intellectual freedom; Mountain Times, December 31, 2025

Mountain Times; Documentary ‘The Librarians’ explores book bans and the fight for intellectual freedom

"Saturday, Jan. 3, and Sunday, Jan. 4, at 3 p.m.—WOODSTOCK—A timely documentary examining the rise of book bans and censorship across the United States will screen in Woodstock this weekend as part of the Woodstock Vermont Film Series. “The Librarians” will be shown at Billings Farm & Museum, with a special post-screening Q&A featuring producer Janique Robillard following Saturday’s screening.

“The Librarians” follows a group of librarians who find themselves on the front lines of a national battle over access to books and ideas. As efforts to remove books from schools and public libraries intensify in states such as Texas and Florida, librarians are emerging as unlikely defenders of democracy and the First Amendment. The film centers in part on the so-called “Krause List,” which targeted more than 850 book titles—many focused on race, identity, and LGBTQ stories—and helped fuel a wave of coordinated censorship efforts nationwide.

Through personal accounts and on-the-ground reporting, the documentary captures the mounting pressure librarians face, including harassment, threats, and legislation that criminalizes aspects of their work. As the debate escalates from local school board meetings to organized political movements at the state and national levels, “The Librarians” traces how access to information becomes a battleground over whose stories are allowed to be told.

By examining the broader consequences of restricting access to books, the film underscores how controlling ideas can shape communities—and why defending intellectual freedom remains a critical issue in contemporary civic life.

The screening is part of the Woodstock Vermont Film Series, which presents documentaries and narrative films that spark conversation and deepen connections to the wider world. Screenings take place on select Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m. in the Billings Farm & Museum Visitor Center Theater through March 22. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $12 for Billings Farm & Museum members.

The series is curated and directed by filmmaker Jay Craven and produced by Billings Farm & Museum with support from community sponsors. 

For more information, visit: billingsfarm.org/filmseries."

They Seek to Curb Online Hate. The U.S. Accuses Them of Censorship.; The New York Times, December 24, 2025

Adam Satariano, The New York Times; They Seek to Curb Online Hate. The U.S. Accuses Them of Censorship.

"Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg lead a German legal aid organization that assists individuals facing online abuse and violent threats.

Clare Melford runs a British group that helps identify disinformation.

Imran Ahmed is a British activist who runs an organization that has chronicled anti-vaccination content on social media.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration accused all of them of a campaign of censorship against Americans.

The four individuals, along with a former senior European Commission official, Thierry Breton of France, were barred from entering the United States after Secretary of State Marco Rubio labeled them “radical activists” who undercut free speech...

The travel ban is a major escalation in a dispute between the Trump administration and Europe over the regulation of online content and social media."

Stop Defending Bari Weiss; The Atlantic, December 24, 2025

Jonathan Chait , The Atlantic; Stop Defending Bari Weiss

"Weiss is following a long-standing instinct to turn every Trump abuse into a debate, a generosity she does not afford targets on the left...

Weiss claims that the CECOT story fails to “advance the ball” because many of its central facts have already been reported. This mania for insisting that every new story introduce breaking news was nowhere to be found when she was airing a town hall with Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, whose talking points have not exactly suffered from underexposure.

Liberal democracy is the proposition that democracy requires more than mere voting. It needs a set of neutral rules governing the state and civil society to prevent ruling parties from becoming entrenched in power. Trump’s maneuvers to influence CBS blatantly violate even the most minimal guardrails of liberal democracy. Those blunt abuses of power matter a million times more than the specific content of a particular 60 Minutes segment.

Conservatives would never accept a left-wing government using regulatory favoritism to pressure conservative media into softening their coverage of a Democratic administration. They may delight in the new editorial direction of CBS News, but they cannot defend the process that led to it. So they pretend it didn’t happen; offer narrow, pointillistic defenses of Weiss’s editorial pretext; and deftly dodge the authoritarianism that enabled it."

South Park writer bought Trump-Kennedy Center domain names months ago to troll president; Entertainment Weekly, December 26, 2025

 Mekishana Pierre, Entertainment Weekly; South Park writer bought Trump-Kennedy Center domain names months ago to troll president

"It looks like the writers of South Park are following in The Simpsons' footsteps when it comes to predicting future events.

In a recent interview with The Washington Post, writer Toby Morton revealed that not only did he predict that Donald Trump would decide to add his name to the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, he prepared for it. In August, the writer, who regularly buys political domains and turns them into satirical websites as a form of activism, bought the rights to both trumpkennedycenter.org and trumpkennedycenter.com.

"As soon as Trump began gutting the Kennedy Center board earlier this year, I thought, 'Yep, that name's going on the building,'" Morton, a comedy writer who has worked on series such as South Park and Mad TV, told the publication. "The rest followed on schedule."...

"The Kennedy Center has always been a cultural institution meant to outlast any one administration or personality," he asserted. "It's meant to honor culture, not ego. Once it was treated like personal branding, satire became unavoidable."...

The renaming immediately drew the ire of the political family, with the likes of Robert F. Kennedy's grandson Joe Kennedy III and John F. Kennedy's niece Maria Shriver and grandson Jack Schlossberg all speaking out.

Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty also contested Leavitt’s version of events in her own social media post. "For the record. This was not unanimous," she wrote. "I was muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move. Also for the record, this was not on the agenda. This was not consensus. This is censorship.""

Supreme Court Will Not Hear Little v. Llano County; Library Journal, December 16, 2025

Lisa Peet, Library Journal; Supreme Court Will Not Hear Little v. Llano County

 "THE LONG GAME

While this is a disheartening development for the plaintiffs, Dan Novack, VP and Associate General Counsel at PRH, feels that a favorable precedent could still be set at the Supreme Court level. PRH has several cases in play, including Penguin Random House LLC v. Robbins, challenging Iowa’s SF496 in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Penguin Random House LLC v. Gibson , fighting Florida’s HB 1069 in the Eleventh Circuit. Both are scheduled to be heard in early 2026.

Given that it only takes about one percent of the cases put forward to it every year, “when there is a traffic jam of cases, as there is in this emerging area of law, it’s really not uncommon for the Supreme Court to sit back and let it play out,” Novack told LJ. If the other cases are also decided against the freedom to read, the Supreme Court may not see the need to step in. But if rulings are split, it may choose to take on one of the cases.

If the Supreme Court had taken Little v. Llano, it could have resulted in a positive ruling coming sooner. But “I’m taking the longer view that it’s good to be presenting more options to the Court, and if they were to take a Penguin Random House case, I feel very strong about the merits of those cases,” said Novack.

Even Llano County’s attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, in his brief in opposition to the writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit ruling, stated that “The Court should wait and allow these [circuit] courts to weigh in on whether and how the Speech Clause applies to library-book removals before jumping in to resolve this issue.”

Novack acknowledges that this decision is a hard one for Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. “Something went very wrong in the Fifth Circuit,” he said. But PRH and its council are committed to a multi-year fight that could potentially reach the Supreme Court and set precedent for the right to read throughout the United States.

“Although our lawsuit has come to a disappointing end,” Leila Green Little, lead plaintiff in the case, told LJ, “I am encouraged by the many people across the country who continue our fight in the courtrooms, their local libraries, and our state and federal legislative chambers.”"

60 Minutes episode on brutal El Salvador prison, pulled from air by CBS, appears online; The Guardian, December 23, 2025

Jenna Amatulli , The Guardian; 60 Minutes episode on brutal El Salvador prison, pulled from air by CBS, appears online

"Alfonsi notes the poor conditions in the prison, showing images of half-dressed men with shaved heads all lined up in rows in front of bunks stacked four high. The bunks have no pillows or pads or blankets. The lights are kept on 24 hours a day and detainees have no access to clean water.

Alfonsi pointed to a 2023 report from the state department that “cited torture and life-threatening prison conditions” in Cecot, she said: “But this year, during a meeting with President Bukele at the White House, President Trump expressed admiration for El Salvador’s prison system,” before airing footage of Trump saying: “They make great facilities. Very strong facilities. They don’t play games.”

The segment also talks to Juan Pappier, deputy director at Human Rights Watch, who helped write an 81-page report that detailed Cecot’s pattern of “systematic torture” and found that nearly half the men in the prison did not actually have a criminal history. Pappier said the study was based on information obtained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s own records. Alfonsi confirmed that 60 Minutes independently corroborated Human Rights Watch’s claims.

William Losada Sánchez, a Venezuelan national and former Cecot inmate, also describes to Alfonsi what it was like to get sent to “the island” – a punishment room where prisoners would be sent if they could not comply with being forced to sit on their knees for 24 hours a day.

“The island is a little room where there’s no light, no ventilation, nothing. It’s a cell for punishment where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us,” he said.

The segment briefly touches on Kristi Noem’s visit to Cecot. Pinto claims the Department of Homeland Security secretary did not speak to a single detainee during her visit...

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator, shared the episode online, saying: “Take a few minutes to watch what they didn’t want you to see. This story should be told.”"

‘60 Minutes’ Report Was Pulled Off the Air. Now It’s on the Internet.; The New York Times, December 23, 2025

Michael M. Grynbaum, The New York Times ; '60 Minutes’ Report Was Pulled Off the Air. Now It’s on the Internet.

"CBS News caused a controversy after it pulled a report from Sunday’s episode of the long-running news program that featured the stories of Venezuelan men who were deported by the Trump administration to a brutal prison in El Salvador. But the 13-minute segment, as originally edited by “60 Minutes” staff members, soon surfaced online in full.

The last-minute change had already set off a political firestorm. Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, said she postponed the segment because its reporting was flawed and incomplete. Her critics — including the “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, Sharyn Alfonsi — saw it as an attempt by CBS to placate the administration. CBS is owned by David Ellison, a technology heir who is trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal that needs federal regulatory approval.

Now the viewing public can draw its own conclusions. After a Canadian television network briefly posted the video on its streaming app on Monday, copies were quickly downloaded and widely shared on social media."

Bari Weiss yanking a 60 Minutes story is censorship by oligarchy; The Guardian, December 23, 2025

Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian; Bari Weiss yanking a 60 Minutes story is censorship by oligarchy

"One tries to give people the benefit of the doubt. But now, when it comes to Bari Weiss as the editor in chief of CBS News, there is no longer any doubt.

A broadcast-news neophyte, Weiss has no business in that exalted role. She proved that beyond any remaining doubt last weekend, pulling a powerful and important piece of journalism just days before it was due to air, charging that it wasn’t ready. Whatever her claims about the story’s supposed flaws, this looks like a clear case of censorship-by-editor to protect the interests of powerful, rich and influential people.

The 60 Minutes piece – about the brutal conditions at an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has sent Venezuelan migrants without due process – had already been thoroughly edited, fact-checked and sent through the network’s standards desk and its legal department. The story was promoted and scheduled, and trailers for it were getting millions of views.

I’m less bothered by the screw-ups in this situation – for example, the segment is already all over the internet as, essentially, a Canadian bootleg – than I am by her apparent willingness to use her position to protect the powerful and take care of business for the oligarchy. Which appears to be precisely what she was hired to do.

Journalism is supposed to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted”, but Weiss seems to have it backwards.

I can’t know what’s in her mind, of course, but I know her actions – her gaslighting about how it would be such a disservice to the public to publish this supposedly incomplete piece, and her ridiculous offer to provide a storied reporting staff with a couple of phone numbers of highly placed Trump officials."

MAGA-Curious CBS Boss Goes Silent on Axed ‘60 Minutes’ Segment; The Daily Beast, December 23, 2025

Josh Fiallo , The Daily Beast; MAGA-Curious CBS Boss Goes Silent on Axed ‘60 Minutes’ Segment

"Discussion of the growing 60 Minutes controversy was conspicuously absent from a CBS editorial meeting on Tuesday morning.

The network’s MAGA-curious new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, who personally spiked a segment critical of the Trump administration that was set to air Sunday night, was on the call but did not address the now-viral report that a Canadian affiliate mistakenly aired...

Although it did not receive its primetime Sunday evening slot, the 14-minute segment still reached a global audience after the Canadian broadcaster Global TV mistakenly published the episode on its streaming app. 

The clip has repeatedly been hit with copyright strikes on YouTube and other social media platforms, but it keeps popping back up on X, BlueSky, and Substack."

‘I ultimately had to comply’: ‘60 Minutes’ EP faces fallout after Bari Weiss shelves story; The Washington Post, December 22, 2025

Liam Scott

 and 

Scott Nover

, The Washington Post; ‘I ultimately had to comply’: ‘60 Minutes’ EP faces fallout after Bari Weiss shelves story

"Kelly McBride, senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, said requiring on-camera interviews with administration officials could be abused to manipulate coverage.

“It would give them the power to pick and choose which stories they want to go out,” McBride said. “It would allow them to literally craft the narrative themselves.”

It’s also uncommon for such a deeply reported segment to be pulled at the last minute, according to McBride. “This is a really high stakes story, and if she [Weiss] wanted to be involved in the process of green lighting or red lighting, that should not happen the day before the story is ready to run,” McBride said."

Yanked "60 Minutes" episode aired in Canada; Axios, December 22, 2025

Sara Fischer , Axios; Yanked "60 Minutes" episode aired in Canada

[Kip Currier: CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss "knows her assignment": run editorial interference for oligarch Paramount Skydance tech baron bosses Larry and David Ellison (who own CBS) and the Trump 2.0 administration.

In one of the first major tests of Weiss's censorial assignment, she has both succeeded and failed: (1) blocking the airing of a damning 60 Minutes segment set to hear on December 21, 2025 on the human rights and due process violations of the Trump 2.0 administration in deporting detainees to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison gulag, and (2) unsuccessfully stopping the blocked video from leaking to Canada and the San Francisco-based Internet Archive.]

[Excerpt]

"The "60 Minutes" segment pulled from air by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss did not include new comments from Trump administration officials, according to a copy of the segment viewed by Axios.

Why it matters: The segment, anchored by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, caused uproar internally over whether it was pulled for political reasons. 

• The package was distributed via an app owned by Global Television which airs "60 Minutes" in Canada.

Zoom in: The segment included interviews with two people who were imprisoned at CECOT, an executive from the nonprofit Human Rights Watch and the director of UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center Investigations Lab.

• One college student, who was detained by U.S. customs before getting deported to CECOT, describes being tortured upon arrival. 
• 
  
• Another man told Alfonsi that he and others were taken to "a little room where there's no light, no ventilation, nothing."
• 
  
• "It's a cell for punishment where you can't see your hand in front of your face. After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour, and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us while we were in there."
• 
  
• "60 Minutes" also said it reviewed available ICE data to confirm Human Rights Watch's findings that suggested only eight deported men had been sentenced for violent or potentially violent crimes.
• 
  

The other side: The segment ends with Alfonsi saying the Department of Homeland Security "declined our request for an interview and referred all questions about CECOT to El Salvador. The government there did not respond to our request."

• The segment included previous comments made by President Trump, who said El Salvador's prison system has "very strong facilities, and they don't play games.""