Bari Weiss invites George Clooney to CBS newsroom after criticism

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss invited actor George Clooney to visit the network’s newsroom after Clooney told Variety on Tuesday that Weiss was “dismantling CBS News as we speak.”

“Bonjour, Mr. Clooney! Big fan of your work. It sounds like you’d like to learn more about ours. This is an open invitation to visit The CBS Broadcast Center, where I’m spending the holidays working to relaunch the Evening News with my colleagues. Tune in January 5,” said Weiss in a statement shared to Variety by Paramount Skydance on Tuesday.

A representative for Clooney did not immediately return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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The “Bonjour, Mr. Clooney” remark in Weiss’s statement is an apparent reference to the actor and his wife recently being granted French citizenship.

Clooney pulled no punches in his wide-ranging interview with Variety’s Brent Lang. The actor touched on topics such as politics, President Donald Trump and the current state of the press.

One issue that Clooney seemed particularly perturbed by was CBS and ABC’s decision to settle multimillion dollar lawsuits with Trump, suggesting the networks should have instead said, “Go f— yourself.”

CBS and ABC have paid at least $16 million apiece to settle lawsuits brought by Trump. But Clooney, who has been living in France after uprooting his family to get away from the culture of Hollywood, is bothered the networks didn’t fight back. 

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“If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go f— yourself,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney told Variety. “That’s simply the truth.”

“It’s a very trying time,” Clooney continued. “It can depress you or make you very angry. But you have to find the most positive way through it. You have to put your head down and keep moving forward because quitting isn’t an option.”

Paramount Global and CBS agreed in July to pay a $16 million upfront sum to settle the president’s lawsuit against the network over how “60 Minutes” edited and released an interview with then-Democratic rival Kamala Harris in 2024. Trump’s team, which initially sought $10 billion, claimed the network’s use of edited clips from a single response about Israel constituted “election interference.” Trump’s legal team championed the settlement as a win for media accountability and the American people.

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The same month as the settlement, the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved an $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance Media, putting David Ellison in charge of the newly formed company. 

Ellison then handpicked Bari Weiss to takeover CBS News, but Clooney isn’t a fan. 

“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Clooney told Variety. “I’m worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”

Trump’s win over CBS came on the heels of ABC’s apology and $16 million settlement with Trump last December after he sued for defamation over “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos’ claims on the air that the president had been held “liable for rape.” The jury in the E. Jean Carroll case to which he was referring had actually ruled he was liable for “sexual abuse.” 

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ABC and CBS did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.