Jimmy Kimmel drags “Trump suck-ups” at CBS over latest firing: “Clowns”
Jimmy Kimmel has pledged his support for former 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley after the “Trump suck-ups” at CBA fired the veteran journalist.
CBS has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons as of late, after David Ellison, who has reported ties to the president, took over CBS’s parent company, Paramount, last October.
Since then, Bari Weiss was appointed the network’s new editor-in-chief. After much internal tension, Pelley accused his new boss, who founded the right-wing media outlet The Free Press, of “murdering” the long-running department. He was quickly let go.
Addressing the incident during his opening monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on June 3rd, the host shared, “Last night, the Trump suck-ups at CBS fired a great and deeply respected journalist, Scott Pelley, from his job at 60 Minutes.”
Kimmel explained that Pelley was fired “because he stood up for truth and integrity at a show that’s been the gold standard for broadcast journalism for 57 years.”
He continued: “Pelley had had enough after the clowns, who now run that show in the CBS News division, fired reporter Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, along with the executive producer Tanya Simon, and replaced Tanya Simon with a guy who has no experience in TV news. And that was it for Scott Pelley.”
Kimmel explained that Pelley “said the collapse of values at the top has become untenable, and he let him have it in a staff meeting right to the new guy’s face. So last night, they fired him.”
The 58-year-old then quipped that 60 Minutes will soon be “replaced by new episodes of Reporters Unleashed,” in a nod to CBS’s decision to replace Stephen Colbert’s beloved The Late Show with Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed.
Kimmel has also been an avid supporter of Colbert since his show’s cancellation. CBS originally insisted that the reasons for the cancellation were “purely financial”. However, much speculation has swirled to the contrary, pointing to CBS’ legal settlement with Donald Trump and its merger with Paramount and Skydance.
In a recent interview, Kimmel accused CBS of “making up” their numbers, and has suggested that late-night television is being “poisoned” from the top.
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