Scott Pelley Has Become the Terry Moran of Dan Rathers

You have to hand it to former 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley. If there was ever a question as to the decision-making process by CBS and Bari Weiss to fire him for being utterly insufferable and self-important, Pelley, on his own volition, removed all doubt. And it has been spectacular to witness. 

Pelley has carried the baton at CBS from Dan Rather for two decades since BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) caused his mentor Rather to throw his career overboard for a forged Texas Air National Guard letter, purportedly composed in 1972. When the internet fact-checked and proved beyond doubt that the faked gotcha letter had been drafted on a PC as a Microsoft Word document in 2004, complete with the raised and underscored th, Rather’s goose was cooked. Everyone knew it except for him. 

That didn’t stop him, however, from prattling on for weeks, months, and years into the future, defending the defenseless partisan hit job he presented as legitimate news, and how important his journalism was to upholding democracy. He still believes he is a consummate newsman and above reproach. 

Two decades later, Scott Pelley is here to say, “Hold my beer.” And, apparently, pass the box of tissues.

The beginning of the end for Pelley, if we’re going to be honest about it, began at a commencement address he gave at Wake Forest about a year ago. Without mentioning President Donald J. Trump by name, it didn’t take much intellect to know to whom he was referring in this screed. 

🚨CBS/60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest:

“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.”

“And… pic.twitter.com/v8hagfQjbT

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) May 26, 2025

I’m not saying he ever really wore the mask of non-partisanship very well, if at all, during his tenure as anchor of CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes. But if he ever wore that mask, it fell off and was left on the dais after this preening stemwinder. 

When Bari Weiss was signed from the Free Press to become editor-in-chief of CBS News and all of the programming under that masthead, you just knew it wouldn’t be too long before sparks would fly. It was only a question of who was going to light the fuse first. 

In June, 2024, Scott Pelley offered this banger from 60 Minutes to assuage any concerns about Joe Biden’s obvious descent into decrepitude. 

Here’s Scott Pelley before his 60 Minutes interview with Biden in late 2023 letting everyone know that Biden’s stutter can return when he’s been working too hard.

I can’t believe that 60 Minutes somehow missed Biden’s decline. 😜 pic.twitter.com/naqP8jjFLp

— MAZE (@mazemoore) June 1, 2026

Any sentient political observer who had seen Joe Biden mentally and physically deteriorate seemingly by the hour knew this piece was propaganda. Fortunately, the former President proved it with his debate disaster three weeks later. And less than two months after the Pelley ‘It’s just a stutter,’ nonsense, Biden was kicked to the curb. 

Weiss and her team started at the Tiffany network last October. Tensions began to grow instantly. June 1st became the boiling point. 

In an all-staff meeting of 60 Minutes personnel, Weiss’ newly-named executive producer, Nick Bilton, was verbally accosted by Pelley. Pelley accused Bilton of not having the qualifications for his post, and accused Weiss of “murdering 60 Minutes”. Pelley was fired a day later. 

HotAir is one of several entities owned and operated by our parent company, Salem Media. As producer of the Hugh Hewitt Show, another program under the Salem umbrella, I think I can speak for everyone you read, hear, or see on our various platforms. We have a lot of latitude to express our views, and are very thankful for the opportunities with which to do so. However, if we were to pull a stunt remotely similar to the one Pelley pulled with, *checks notes*, his bosses, we’d be dropped faster than a Graham Platner ex-girlfriend. 

Even Katie Couric, no stranger to either network news, CBS, or media bias, admitted the obvious on her podcast. Insubordination is one of those pesky things that will get you bounced from your contract, regardless of the regard in which you hold yourself. 

Ex-CBS anchor Katie Couric begrudgingly backs Bari Weiss firing Scott Pelley, calls his confrontation ‘a classic definition of insubordination.’ The former CBS anchor says she admired Pelley standing up for his principles but argues he left management with no choice after his… pic.twitter.com/UMEX4hocHH

— Fox News Flash (@FoxNews_Flash) June 6, 2026

By mid-week, the mourning Pelley called up his friends at the New York Times, and explained how he views his craft as just like wearing the uniform. 

“I have been in combat in Afghanistan,” Pelley told the outlet. “I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast.”

The late columnist Michael Kelly, who wrote for The Atlantic back when it was a credible publication, died as an embedded reporter when a Humvee he was traveling in across the Iraqi desert towards Baghdad in 2003 hit rough terrain, swerved under gunfire, and overturned in a canal, drowning Kelly and the Marines with whom he was embedded. Kelly told us repeatedly that journalism is not a profession. It’s a craft to be practiced. He never got too full of himself, even though he was widely regarded as the country’s finest columnist/essayist. 

Pelly, however, drank his own Kool-Aid for so long that he’s developed a dependency. Not content with the reaction to his phone call to the Times, he went on camera for a sit-down with Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the Times. Let’s begin with the doubling down of his equating actual military service with carrying a microphone…and a comb. 

CBS’s Scott Pelley breaks down in tears over how colleagues he went “into liberal combat together” with overseas were all fired, giving off feelings of “shock, dismay, impossible to believe”…

“Shock, dismay, impossible to believe, searching desperately for an explanation,… pic.twitter.com/RhpiD6ARy0

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

Hoo-boy. Hope this episode was sponsored by Kleenex, because we’re going to be going through the 3-ply ultra-soft here by the Costco case. Nothing but the best for Scott. 

EYE ROLL: Scott Pelley says “it was fate” that he chose to tear into his new bosses to their faces and cries AGAIN when saying “newsrooms are sort of like the military” and have “life-threatening job[s]” with “very strong bonds” that demand “people…go to war zones… pic.twitter.com/pYD27PaKFd

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

Newsrooms are sorta like the military…except for the 100% of the time when they’re not. He’s really not going to let this ‘I served, too’ bit go. 

Scott Pelley responds to Trump saying he doesn’t care about the country: “I’ve never worn the uniform, but I’ve been in combat for this country. In Afghanistan, and Iraq, Kuwait. Been shot at. Spent nights in foxholes filling up with water in the desert. I’m not aware that the… pic.twitter.com/TskersR5Lo

— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) June 7, 2026

More Pelley tear-filled reflections.

The arrogance of this guy…

Lulu Garcia-Navarro: “But, Scott, in a meeting, you accused Bari Weiss, the head of the network of wanting to murder the show, of coming into 60 Minutes with the agenda to dismantle the institution. And you did not think that that was going to have… pic.twitter.com/ZCiPXY1cyW

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

‘We used to have meetings like this all the time.’ No, they didn’t. I’m fairly confident no one ever said to CBS management in the past that they’re murdering the show, and they have no qualifications to make decisions. Why? Because they were all in the same left-wing club. 

Pelley was so tone deaf and self-absorbed in his Manhattan-Beltway media bubble that he had no idea who Bari Weiss was, even though she used to work at, *checks notes again*, the New York Times for years as the staff editor of the Opinion page – the same outlet he’s using for his therapy session. 

Scott Pelley says he had never even heard of Bari Weiss before she was hired as CBS News editor-in-chief pic.twitter.com/18W475MC23

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

Did Pelley have any clue his outburst in the staff meeting might not be received too well? Nah. 

Lulu Garcia-Navarro: “But it really didn’t occur to you that you could be fired after so many of your colleagues had been let go after you’d had this, you know, very contentious interaction with your new boss?”

Scott Pelley: “You know, some reporter, I turned out to be. I just… pic.twitter.com/rDtKTzJMgY

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

Bias, this Weiss woman claims we have. I have no idea what she’s talking about. Bias? Pshaw. 

WATCH: Here’s the full exchange of Scott Pelley saying he was “shocked” to hear @BariWeiss or anyone say there’s a bias at CBS News and the country doesn’t trust the news media, insisting “we certainly didn’t believe that….”

Garcia-Navarro: “So, when Bari comes in, she has a… pic.twitter.com/c88dPEfWhc

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

Oh, you mean this bias? 

Scott Pelley says, contrary to what President Trump, Bari Weiss, and others claim, there’s no evidence Renee Good tried to hit ICE officer Jonathan Ross with her car, but he shot her anyway pic.twitter.com/mSJyYT9idr

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

Three different camera angles showed Ms. Good turning the steering wheel into the officer directly in front of her car and hitting the gas. Clear as crystal. She got herself shot because she disobeyed a lawful order to stop and get out of the vehicle, attempted to flee the scene of a crime, and used her car as a deadly weapon, striking an officer while attempting to evade arrest. Pelley would have you believe that’s not what your eyes saw on all those videos, and that Bari Weiss was ordering him to lie. No bias there.

Scott Pelley cries again when declaring CBS’s Bari Weiss and Tom Cibrowski showed “breathtaking, completely lack of empathy,” “callousness,” and “inhumanity” by letting go Tanya Simon because her “family is legendary at CBS News.”

He again insists the tears are not “about me,”… pic.twitter.com/5WSjQDJjmF

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

This is not about me, he says. 

WATCH: Scott Pelley explains away his decision to reject any and all overtures from Nick Bilton and Bari Weiss’s team about the ’60 Minutes’ changes, waiting until the all-hands meeting to attack…

“I’m almost 69 years old. And if I’ve learned one thing in life, it is not to… pic.twitter.com/np9GObrkmT

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

As Sammy Davis, Jr. sang,

Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong
Whether I find a place in this world or never belong
I gotta be me, I’ve gotta be me
What else can I be but what I am

Ah, yes. Scott Pelley, man of the common people, not making any of this about him. 

Scott Pelley INSISTS “I’m fine” and this is “not about me,” but gets misty-eyed when saying being fired at CBS News is “like your spouse was murdered” and many times he “frankly fall[s] apart” because being married to someone is the same “depth” of “devotion” he gave to CBS….… pic.twitter.com/srOqyUZn6g

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 7, 2026

Give him a year, and by then, the all-star podfest of ex-anchors will be epic – Pelley, Acosta, Lemon, Moran, Couric. You just know someone will pin a sorta-medal of courage on him, because he’s sorta-military, don’t you know, and CBS broke his sorta-progressive, left-wing heart. 

But I will give him this much credit. Being sorta-military, he didn’t get a sorta-Nazi tattoo on his chest. So he’s got that much going for him. 

Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy HotAir’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.