In January, Larijani was said to have overseen the crackdown on protesters that resulted in many thousands of Iranians being killed in the streets by the regime and many more being imprisoned.

Days ago, Larijani was walking the streets of Tehran during the Quds Day parade in a defiant show of force.

Larijani was very close with the now-deceased Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who unlike Larijani is a cleric, was named as his father’s replacement, but he is said to be more of a symbol of power rather than a day-to-day ruler, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps being the dominant power in the country.

Mojtaba Khamenei remains in hiding and is a top target of the Israeli military and intelligence services.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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“The rise in antisemitism.”

Calling what is aggressively permeating American society and popular and political culture a “rise in antisemitism” vastly understates the problem because it makes the phenomenon sound like a temporary increase in incidents or statistics.

What we are actually dealing with is something far more pervasive than a statistical uptick. It is an ideological contagion. It is spreading across political movements, social media platforms, and countries.

This ideological contagion is not only spreading among predictable quarters. It is also radicalizing people in demographics that have not historically been associated with anti-Jewish prejudice — and certainly not with violence against Jews.

That is why I describe it as a pandemic of Jew-hatred rather than a mere rise.

What we are witnessing fits that pattern: ideas that once existed at the fringes are now circulating at scale, crossing from subcultures into mainstream discourse, and radicalizing new audiences in the process.

It is a rapid, cross-border spread of an ideological pathogen.

It is embedding itself in political language. In digital culture. In social movements.

It is not a momentary spike in hostility toward Jews.

A pandemic, by definition, is not merely a disease that exists — it is a disease that has escaped containment. It spreads across borders. It jumps between populations with no prior exposure or immunity. It overwhelms the institutions designed to check it.

Jew-hatred is no longer confined to the ideological communities that have historically incubated it. It has traveled from community to community with remarkable speed and relatively little resistance.

And like any pandemic pathogen, it mutates as it spreads — it adapts its language. It finds new hosts. But the core is unchanged: the same hatred, only repackaged.

I have spent over ten years focused on tracking and combating extremism, mostly Jew-hatred and antisemitic movements.

After a decade in this space, I understand how it works, the conspiracies and the accelerants and the specific moments that send recruitment and radicalization spiking.

The COVID pandemic was one of the most significant radicalization events for Jew-hatred in a generation. An ancient libel of Jews as poisoners and plague-bringers fused seamlessly with vaccine conspiracies and pandemic-profiteering narratives.

That fusion pulled in people who had never previously identified with antisemitic movements.

So I am clear-eyed about what follows when I use the word pandemic to describe what is happening to American society and around the world.

It will be weaponized, but there is no alternative.

Because the alternative — softening the diagnosis, calling it a ‘rise’ or a ‘trend’ or an ‘uptick’ — is negligent. And a disease that goes undiagnosed gets worse, and it gets worse quickly and often quietly, until it destroys the host.

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In the coming weeks and months, I will share more data, evidence, and analysis on what I have tracked and observed over the past decade, some of which I have already shared on social media.

But the solution for this is not a vaccine — I am sure some conspiracy theorists will accuse me of suggesting otherwise — or even severe content moderation, which is neither feasible nor effective.

You can no longer deplatform someone effectively, and in fact, in this new era, attempting to do so will backfire and spread the Jew-hatred further.

But acknowledging the urgency and danger of this pandemic is essential, because I still deal with ordinary people — reasonable people — who deny it. Who say it is fueled by the intelligence agencies of foreign nations, by a particular political party, by bots or troll farms.

Here is what that denial looks like in practice.

For example, I still hear claims that Candace Owens is on the fringe, that only “very online” people are aware of her, or that she is merely focused on exposing the crimes and corruption of the Israeli government.

Well, very online people are still human beings who become radicalized, vote or do not vote in elections, and commit acts of violence.

And the dangerous, Jew-hating bile that Candace disseminates to her millions of fans has nothing to do with holding the Israeli government accountable — in fact, it actively undermines that goal.

Candace has an enormous, dedicated, and loyal audience — made up mostly of women who would have once been called normie moms.

Women who work outside the home, women who work at home, who are responsible directly or indirectly for their children’s education, who dutifully and lovingly attend their kids’ sports events. Women who have voted for Republicans and Democrats in past elections.

People have a hard time believing it until I show them example after example.

“How did this happen?” they ask me. “How is this happening in the United States of America?”

A pandemic is global by definition, and this one is no exception.

But Americans who treat Jew-hatred as a foreign import — as something that arrived here from Europe, from the Middle East, from the internet — are wrong.

After finally opening its doors to Jews — after decades of restriction and quotas, after turning away the S.S. St. Louis, many of whose passengers were later murdered in the Holocaust — the United States became a haven: a place where they have thrived and often felt safe.

But that haven was always conditional, always fragile.

The hatred of Jews is a deeply American phenomenon. We have exported it and imported it, traded in it freely across borders and generations.

It is as American as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.

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Several followers asked me to share it here so they could send it to those who aren’t active on social media.

I have made a few edits to make it more appropriate for Substack, but otherwise it’s basically the same text.

For those who don’t know me well, my commentary here isn’t a reflection of sadness or anything like that — I don’t care on an emotional level about these people. It’s more an expression of defiance.

On Jew Hatred and Trolls

I’m so sick of snark and trolling from people on social media because I talk about Jew hatred a lot.

First, those who have followed me for a while know this has been a focus of mine for more than 10 years — it’s not something I suddenly picked up post–October 7.

My focus is largely on extremism, particularly in America, and not on Israel, although I fully understand there’s crossover.

Second, people who say my focus on this is cringe, annoying, or stupid either don’t understand how serious this problem is — or they’re Jew haters themselves.

This is an urgent matter.

I wouldn’t spend this much time on it if it weren’t.

And despite what some people online seem to believe, it certainly isn’t lucrative or helpful to my career.

We know from decades of research that once someone adopts a fully developed antisemitic worldview, it becomes very, very difficult to deradicalize them — though not impossible.

I don’t want to lose more people to the abyss of Jew hatred and that’s why I spend so much time monitoring it, documenting it, and exposing it.

As far as I’m concerned, this is existential — not only for Jews, but also for the health of American society.

Whenever Jewish people say this, it’s often treated as a threat by neo-Nazis and other types of Jew haters.

But societies where Jew hatred is allowed to thrive and spread end up collapsing.

It’s not because Jews punish those societies, but because antisemitism corrodes institutions, destroys trust, and turns citizens against one another.

Once a society becomes comfortable blaming Jews for its problems, it has usually already entered a stage of deep political and moral decay.

When hatred of Jews becomes part of someone’s identity and worldview, it shapes how they understand everything: politics, morality, and even their sense of belonging.

Antisemitism operates differently from many other forms of hatred because it is conspiratorial in nature rather than simply prejudicial.

Conspiracy beliefs are self-sealing: evidence against them is interpreted as proof of the conspiracy itself.

People who adopt strong antisemitic views often move into social ecosystems that reinforce those beliefs: online communities, ideological networks, and political movements.

Antisemites also see their hatred as morally justified.

In their minds, they are defending civilization, fighting corruption, exposing hidden evil, and, as many of you learned recently, exposing child-killing pedophiles.

Once hatred becomes framed as a moral duty, deradicalization becomes far more difficult.

Antisemitism also “explains” everything to the Jew hater.

Because Jews are falsely framed as the hidden cause behind many unrelated problems, Jews become the grand explanatory theory for the world’s failures and for the failures and challenges people have personally.

People who criticize me or mock me ultimately don’t bother me. I’m used to being trolled and attacked. And let’s not forget: I’m one of Scientology’s biggest targets. Once you reach that point, little can bother you.

But it is deeply concerning — particularly because they cannot even claim that I spend my time advocating for Israel or defending the decisions of the Israeli government.

So their issue is with Jews.

Ultimately, if you have a problem with me talking about this, you can kiss my Iranian ass.

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But Iran is not yet free.

Khamenei not only presided over the murder, torture, and imprisonment of Iranians; he oversaw the systematic destruction of Iran, a nation filled with people who embody what I believe is the greatest culture in the world.

He targeted Iran’s minority communities with a ruthlessness that was breathtaking but not surprising, given how this regime was established.

Under his leadership, the regime subjected entire groups to systematic discrimination, imprisonment, execution, economic exclusion, and cultural erasure.

This included the incredible Baha’i people of Iran, against whom he pursued a campaign of destruction that mirrored what the Nazi regime did to Jews prior to the start of the Holocaust, stripping them of education, livelihoods, property, legal protections, and basic human dignity in a calculated effort to push them out of public life.

It included Baluchis, who faced disproportionate executions and severe economic marginalization; Kurds, who endured military crackdowns and political repression; Ahwazi Arabs; Sunni Muslims across multiple provinces; Gonabadi dervishes; Christians; and Iranian Jews, who lived under constant scrutiny, intimidation, and institutionalized discrimination.

In the month prior to his death, he authorized the industrial scale slaughter of his fellow Iranians who were fighting for freedom, just one of many moments when he nodded his head when the IRGC asked him if they could turn military grade weapons on Iranians, young and old.

His bloodthirsty, heartless actions not only inflicted immeasurable suffering on Iranians; they also tarnished the reputation of the great Iranian people, both at home and around the world, with the stain of death, corruption, and tyranny.

Iranians are the heirs of one of history’s great civilizations; yet for 47 years, first as president and then as Supreme Leader, Khamenei systematically worked to dismantle that legacy and suppress the potential of the Iranian people.

He destabilized the region, and the blood of Syrians, Yemenis, Israelis, Iraqis, Lebanese, and Palestinians is also on his hands.

Through the arming and financing of militias and terrorist organizations, the export of revolutionary ideology, and the deliberate cultivation of proxy wars, his criminal leadership entrenched cycles of violence far beyond the borders of Iran.

Entire societies were dragged into prolonged instability and destruction as a result of his leadership.

But do not buy into the idea that his death guarantees freedom for Iranians.

As I have repeatedly reminded my followers, and I am far from alone in saying this, the Islamic Republic is vast, deeply entrenched, and structurally embedded in nearly every major lever of power. It controls a significant share of the economy, the security apparatus, and the political system itself.

Iran is also surrounded by governments and regimes that do not view the emergence of a genuinely free and democratic Iran as aligned with their strategic interests.

Jumping to the conclusion that “it’s over” only harms Iranians.

It creates complacency at the very moment when sustained pressure, scrutiny, and support matter most.

My own family was repeatedly impacted by Khamenei’s criminal regime; how I wish so many of them, including my Uncle Samad, were here to witness this moment.

LONG LIVE IRAN.

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Israeli officials are now definitively telling members of the press, on background, that Khamenei was killed in airstrikes.

Axios’s Barak Ravid reports that Israel’s ambassador to the United States has confirmed to U.S. officials that Khamenei was killed.

Israeli officials are also telling Reuters that Khamenei’s body has been found.

If events follow historical precedent — as they did with Khomeini in 1989 and Raisi in 2024 — the regime would likely wait until tomorrow morning to issue any formal confirmation, typically during state broadcast hours and often accompanied by Qur’an recitation and mourning programming before or alongside the announcement.

In an interview with Ravid, President Trump said he had several off-ramps built into the military operation against the Islamic Republic.

“I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear and missile programs].’ In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack,” he told Ravid.

In response to the attacks, Ali Larijani, the ultra-powerful Islamic Republic national security advisor, said, “We will make the Zionist criminals and the shameless Americans regret their actions. The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will give an unforgettable lesson to the hellish international oppressors.”

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As sirens blared across Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a nationwide state of emergency, limiting activities in the country to essential functions only.

Iran’s airspace has been closed as Israel, joined by the United States, launches attacks against regime targets within Iranian territory.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

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Earlier today, Warner Bros. announced that the bid submitted by Paramount Skydance was superior to Netflix’s bid and gave the streaming giant four days to counter. Netflix released a statement this afternoon saying, in part: “At the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”

Ellison, who has a close relationship with President Trump, his administration, and top Republican senators, already controls Paramount, which includes CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, and a portfolio of cable networks.

If completed, the deal would consolidate an extraordinary concentration of news, entertainment, streaming, film, and cable assets under a single corporate structure — reshaping the media landscape in both Hollywood and Washington.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Please forgive any grammatical errors.

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After the statement Buckingham Palace released the other day — in which the King expressed “profound concern” over the allegations tied to Jeffrey Epstein, emphasized sympathy for victims, and said the Palace would “stand ready to support” Thames Valley Police should they seek cooperation — I knew it was possible.

But I still wasn’t sure it would actually happen.

A senior member of the British royal family has not been arrested by British authorities in hundreds of years.

That law enforcement officers went onto Sandringham — the royal family’s private estate — on his 66th birthday to carry this out is stunning.

That Mountbatten-Windsor’s electronics and files are currently being searched while he is being held in custody is hard to wrap my head around.

It is difficult to overstate how extraordinary this moment is.

We are talking about a man who, despite losing his royal titles and styles amid the fallout from his association with Jeffrey Epstein, remains eighth in line to the British throne.

He is also the father of two members of the royal family who are ninth and tenth in the line of succession.

This is a remarkable moment in British constitutional history — and it is obviously also welcome and overdue.

For those who may not be aware, this investigation and his arrest today are not directly related to allegations of sexual violence.

The allegation is that Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential UK government material with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a UK trade envoy — specifically sensitive trip/travel reports and related briefings from official overseas visits.

Statement by The King:

“I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office.

What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities.

In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation.

Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.

As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter. Meanwhile, my family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all. Charles R.”

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The announcement was made at the Munich Security Conference by the UK’s Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was in attendance.

The joint statement said that Navalny, who was assassinated two years ago this week, died due to the frog’s poison, which obviously is not native to Russia.

There is no specific antidote for this poison. Medical care is limited to stabilizing the patient and addressing complications.

Because Navalny was being held in a penal colony near the Arctic Circle under the exclusive control of the Russian government, only Russian authorities would have had access to administer the poison.

An operation involving such a prominent dissident could only be carried out on the orders of Vladimir Putin.

The Ecuadorian dart frog’s native habitat is over 7,000 miles from where Navalny was being held prisoner.

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Spain has also reversed its position and will support the designation, clearing the way for its adoption.

The announcement comes in the aftermath of the mass murder by the Islamic Republic and its security forces of many thousands of Iranians who were protesting and demanding the fall of the regime — an episode that likely represents the most significant oppression by the Islamic Republic in its 47-year history.

While the IRGC is already heavily sanctioned globally, this move will have the added impact of making Europeans wary of doing business with any Iranian companies, including those not directly owned or controlled by the state.

This is due to the fact that the IRGC has its hands — overtly and covertly — in so much of the Iranian economy that Europeans will be leery of potentially doing business with any entity that may have a connection to the IRGC.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — which is under the direct command of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei — is a powerful parallel military and security organization created after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, established it to protect the Islamic Republic rather than the Iranian state itself.

According to multiple former and current U.S. intelligence officials, Khamenei sets the organization’s red lines and almost always approves its budget requests without micromanaging.

The IRGC operates alongside — but independent from — Iran’s regular armed forces.

And it doesn’t just have a military role, the IRGC wields immense influence over politics, the economy, and internal security.

The IRGC also has the notorious Quds Force under its umbrella.

The Quds Force is responsible for foreign operations, including training, arming, and directing proxy militias across the Middle East, conducting covert activities abroad, and supporting groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansar Allah (the Houthis).

An EU designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization is not just a symbolic move.

The designation carries significant legal and operational consequences for the IRGC.

This in turn means substantial consequences for the regime overall, including Ayatollah Khamenei.

Among the impacts of the designation:

1. The designation will criminalize any form of support for the IRGC across all EU member states.

2. It will enable asset seizures and prosecutions against IRGC-linked front companies and networks.

3. It will collapse the long-maintained fiction that the IRGC can be treated as a normal state military actor rather than a transnational terrorist organization.

4. The move will sharply restrict IRGC travel and activity in Europe.

5. It will strengthen protections for Iranian dissidents and journalists targeted by the group.

6. It will allow past acts previously treated as espionage or foreign interference to be reexamined under terrorism frameworks.

7. While it will not, by itself, end repression inside Iran, the designation significantly raises the cost of IRGC operations in Europe.

8. It marks the end of years of EU legal and political reluctance to confront the group’s role in terrorism and extraterritorial violence.

The IRGC was first designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019 under the Trump administration.

That designation impacted the Biden administration’s ability to get the Islamic Republic to agree to a new nuclear deal after President Trump withdrew the United States from the deal that President Obama had negotiated.

The Islamic Republic wanted the terrorist designation withdrawn but President Biden refused.

Statement from the French Foreign Minister:

“There can be no impunity.

The unbearable repression of the Iranian people’s peaceful uprising cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Their extraordinary courage in the face of the indiscriminate violence unleashed against them must not be in vain.

Together with our European partners, we will tomorrow in Brussels adopt sanctions against those responsible for these abuses. They will be barred from entering European territory, and their assets will be frozen.

France will support the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations.

The regime must urgently release detainees, put an end to executions, lift the digital blockade, and allow the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Fact-Finding Mission to investigate the crimes committed in Iran.”

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In the letter, Trump ties not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize to his claim that he is no longer obligated to think “purely of peace.”

He then asserts that there are no written documents formalizing Denmark’s control over Greenland — a claim that is false — and goes on to demand “complete and total control of Greenland.”

Schifrin reports that the note from President Trump was also forwarded to several European ambassadors.

For a sitting U.S. president to explicitly question a NATO ally’s sovereignty over territory, link a personal grievance over the Nobel Peace Prize to abandoning a commitment to think “purely of peace,” and use maximalist language by demanding “complete and total control” rather than engaging in diplomacy is a shocking development, though not entirely surprising coming from President Trump.

That the message was formally circulated beyond its intended recipient to multiple European ambassadors underscores that this was not a private aside, but an official communication between allied governments.

President Trump’s letter will only ramp up tensions over Greenland, which Denmark considers an integral part of its sovereign territory.

Here is the full note from President Trump to the Prime Minister of Norway:

“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”

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Merz would be the first major world leader to predict such a rapid end to the regime.

The chancellor, who serves as Germany’s head of government (equivalent to a prime minister), made the remarks to reporters while traveling in Bangalore, India, in comments reported and filmed by DW political editor Michaela Kuefner.

Those comments followed remarks Merz made on Monday, when he said that the Islamic Republic’s use of “disproportionate and brutal violence” against protesters was “a sign of weakness.”

On Monday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that the Islamic Republic had “lost all legitimacy.”

(On a personal note: given the complexities of how the regime is structured and the number of people invested in its survival, I caution my fellow Iranians not to get their hopes up regarding the timeline the chancellor proposed. Better to be emotionally safe than sorry.)

A translation of Merz’s remarks follows:

“When a regime can only maintain power through violence, it is effectively finished. I assume that we are now witnessing the last days and weeks of this regime. It has no legitimacy anyway, having never gained it through elections among the population. The population is now rising up against this regime. I hope there is a way to bring this conflict to an end peacefully.

The mullah regime must recognize this now as well. And we are in close communication.”

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The New York Times reports that D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeannine Pirro opened a federal investigation into Powell this past November.

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While the regime has been viciously assaulting — and even murdering —Iranians in the streets, they still have not used even 1% of the force they are capable of.

I have little doubt they will ratchet up the violence this week.

But I wanted to remind everyone that while there are courageous Iranians in the streets taking more risks than many of us ever will, please do not forget the Iranians who are at home and still putting their freedom and lives on the line.

They’re organizing their compatriots online, sharing videos of the savagery their countrymen are facing in the streets, organizing Telegram groups, and hosting audio streams.

And they’re not all young.

There are Iranians like a 72-year-old grandfather whom I’ve communicated with in the past.

He is retired, and three years ago, during the Women, Life, Freedom uprisings, he asked his grandson to set up an Instagram account for him.

All he does all day is share Instagram posts and Reels to his stories about the regime’s repression and corruption — he often hits the maximum number of stories that Instagram allows people to post.

He has fewer than 1,000 followers, but every time he clicks the share button on a post, he is risking his future.

You likely won’t see any of these people who aren’t in the streets face the brutality of the regime, because they will be snatched in the dark of the night and disappeared.

And that’s why I ask that you not forget that while so many horrific things are happening on video, so much of the regime’s treachery unfolds in silence — where there are no cameras, no witnesses, and no viral clips to force the world to pay attention.

LONG LIVE THE BRAVE PEOPLE OF IRAN.

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Replies like “just like the USA” and “almost as bad as ICE” flood my replies and direct messages.

I finally hit my limit a couple of days ago and felt compelled, for the first time, to record audio addressing these so-called progressives. It’s embedded in this post, and in an updated version of the post I will also include a YouTube link to the same audio in case you prefer to listen that way.

I hope you will listen.

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Two matters today: CBS News employees received a memo from top CBS News executives and editors, which I have shared in full below (but please read my analysis first), and President Trump’s Department of Justice says that prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and the FBI have uncovered over one million new documents related to the Epstein matter.

First, CBS News…

In the aftermath of a story about CECOT — El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where Venezuelan and other deportees were sent by the Trump administration — being pulled at the last minute from 60 Minutes by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, a firestorm within the network’s news division has continued.

Weiss’s decision resulted in an email from 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi to her fellow correspondents being leaked, and a portion of the story getting out due to the fact that it was shipped to Canada’s Global TV app and not pulled back.

In case you’re new to this story, here’s the email Alfonsi sent, and here’s the segment.

Today, top CBS News executives and editors sent a memo to CBS News employees stating that, “No amount of outrage—whether from activist organizations or the White House—will derail us. We are not out to score points with one side of the political spectrum or to win followers on social media.”

The tone of the email, and that specific quote, has angered several CBS News employees who spoke to me, one of whom sent me the email they received.

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These employees, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, told me they feel that their genuine concerns about CBS News standards, and the influence of Paramount CEO David Ellison — who will need the Trump administration’s approval of his attempt to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery assets — are being ignored and treated like a comment on an Instagram post that can be deleted.

The memo’s comment about “winning followers on social media” is a common response from top news editors in the last decade to most controversies related to their editorial decisions — most notably, in my experience, Dean Baquet, who served as The New York Times executive editor from 2014 to 2022. Baquet dealt with significant frustration from liberal readers over the way the Times reported on President Trump.

Sometimes the assessments of editors are correct; these matters can be niche online issues (although the idea that they shouldn’t at least understand what’s being said online is foolish).

But in my analysis, this CBS News 60 Minutes matter crossed over into a widespread issue, with normies who rarely pay attention to the day-to-day expressing grave concern. (You know you have a problem when you find people on Facebook who rarely post about political matters discussing a story, which happened in this case.)

The full memo is below, but I do want to note something based on my experience.

As my longtime followers and subscribers know, I have done a tremendous amount of reporting on CBS and CBS News over the years.

For those of you who are new to my page, my reporting ranges from scoops like John Dickerson being named as Charlie Rose’s replacement on CBS This Morning, to stories about Bianna Golodryga’s deal with the network, rumors of her exit, which was denied by CBS News, and then finally her exit, to reporting on Les Moonves’s attempts to undermine Janet Jackson after her Super Bowl performance and wardrobe mishap, to Susan Zirinsky, the newly named CBS News president, making sweeping changes to the network, to Zirinsky telling people at the network that she regretted accepting the job (something she and the network denied, but which was later also confirmed by The New York Times), to behind-the-scenes reporting on Sharon Osbourne’s conduct at The Talk.

Bottom line, and at the risk of sounding smug, I know the network and the news division well.

Putting aside the matter of the 60 Minutes CECOT story, network news divisions are like U.S. government agencies — presidents come and go, cabinet secretaries shuffle in and out, but the longtime staff remains, and there will always be an institutionalized culture that won’t change.

To be clear, there are spectacularly talented journalists, producers, and staff at CBS News.

Regardless, the more suspicious they become of you, the less likely you are to survive, or at least survive successfully. That is a tale as old as time in the network news business, and it’s not going to change no matter who owns CBS.

And for those of you who don’t follow the news business closely, while the idea of serving as a network news division’s president or editor in chief may sound glamorous, there are very few people who want these positions anymore.

A few years ago, when there was talk of who would replace Jeff Zucker as CNN’s president, one media figure whose name was being mentioned as a possible replacement told me that there wasn’t any amount of money he could be offered (within reason) to take the job.

“There’s no way to win in these jobs anymore,” he told me.

Here’s the email, and beneath that, you will find the news about the Department of Justice’s Epstein files announcement.

Subject: Building Trust

Sender: Weiss, Bari [please note the four signers at the end of the email]

1:18 PM

Hi all,

Right now, the majority of Americans say they do not trust the press. It isn’t because they’re crazy.

To win back their trust, we have to work hard. Sometimes that means doing more legwork. Sometimes it means telling unexpected stories. Sometimes it means training our attention on topics that have been overlooked or misconstrued. And sometimes it means holding a piece about an important subject to make sure it is comprehensive and fair.

In our upside-down moment, this may seem radical. Such editorial decisions can cause a firestorm, particularly on a slow news week. And the standards for fairness we are holding ourselves to, particularly on contentious subjects, will surely feel controversial to those used to doing things one way. But to fulfill our mission, it’s necessary.

No amount of outrage—whether from activist organizations or the White House—will derail us. We are not out to score points with one side of the political spectrum or to win followers on social media. We are out to inform the American public and to get the story right.

Restoring the integrity of the news is a difficult task. We can’t think of a more important one.

Merry Christmas—and thank you, especially, to everyone who is working over this holiday.

Yours,

Bari [Weiss - CBS News Editor in Chief]

Tom [Cibrowski – President and Executive Editor of CBS News]

Charles [Forelle – Managing Editor at CBS News]

Adam [Rubenstein – Deputy Editor at CBS News]

Epstein Files Update

This afternoon, President Trump’s Department of Justice sent a press release stating that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and the FBI have uncovered over 1 million new documents that are related to the Epstein matter.

As a result, the DOJ says they need a few more weeks to review the documents and to release them. A reminder: the federal law President Trump signed stated that all unclassified Epstein documents had to be released by December 19, 2025.

Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia, who serves as the Ranking Member on the House Oversight Committee, released a statement in response to the news saying that the White House is openly engaging in a cover-up.

As the conspiracies around the Epstein matter continue to grow, this will, of course, only add to them in a way that is obviously concerning for government transparency, the rule of law, and the trust Americans have in their institutions.

This will also be a political concern for the Trump coalition; some of his supporters have been angered by the way he has handled this matter, and they have remained angry and skeptical.

And, as much as some of you don’t want to hear this, it is concerning for the safety of American Jewry, given that so many of the conspiracies surrounding this matter are antisemitic in nature.

U.S. Department of Justice Statement:

“The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI have informed the Department of Justice that they have uncovered over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. The DOJ has received these documents from SDNY and the FBI to review them for release, in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, existing statutes, and judicial orders. We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible. Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks. The Department will continue to fully comply with federal law and President Trump’s direction to release the files.”

Statement from Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee:

“The White House is openly engaged in a cover-up protecting Epstein’s co-conspirators and the powerful men who abused women and girls. It’s outrageous that the DOJ has illegally withheld over 1 million documents from the public. Every day we see lies, incompetence, missed deadlines, and illegal redactions. Pam Bondi needs to testify to Congress under oath to explain herself. Oversight Democrats also want to hear from whistleblowers or anyone at the DOJ who can assist us in bringing justice for the survivors. You are protected by the law.”

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(If you already know the background of this story, the video is down at the bottom)

Yesterday, CBS News pulled a story titled “Inside CECOT” just hours before it was set to air.

The report examined the Trump administration’s controversial deportation of more than 250 people — most of them Venezuelan nationals — to CECOT, a sprawling prison in El Salvador where detainees were held under severe conditions. The segment featured interviews with deportees who described brutal treatment and alleged abuse inside the facility.

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The decision to pull the story was made by CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss, and it triggered a firestorm within the network and, subsequently, in the public. Here’s some info on the controversy and when I update this story shortly, I will link to additional reporting, but I wanted to publish this video immediately as a version of it was taken down on YouTube.

It turns out that the network delivered the segment to Canada’s Global TV app (it has since been pulled).

As I understand it, this is only part of the overall story, but this 13-minute-long video— sent to me by a source —is what exists.

(An earlier version of this story had a video that was filmed with someone’s smart phone, this is a broadcast quality version)

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The story was set to air on this evening’s broadcast of 60 Minutes and had been repeatedly promoted by the network in the days leading up to today. It was expected to be highly critical of the Trump administration.

In the email — first reported by The Wall Street Journal — Alfonsi compares the decision to spike the story to the Jeffrey Wigand scandal.

Jeffrey Wigand was a tobacco industry whistleblower whose interview was initially withheld by CBS in the 1990s over legal concerns, a decision that severely damaged the network’s credibility and became one of the most infamous episodes in broadcast journalism.

Alfonsi writes that Weiss declined to speak with her about the decision. She also says the move was political rather than editorial.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi wrote. “It is factually correct.”

In a statement, Bari Weiss, editor-in-chief of CBS News said, “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”

The full email was not published by The Wall Street Journal, but I have obtained it.

The Journal reported that the email was sent to, among others, 60 Minutes correspondents Anderson Cooper and Leslie Stahl. And now, CNN’s Brian Stelter reports that some CBS News employees are threatening to quit.

Here is the full email:

News Team,

Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier.

I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.

Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.

We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.

If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient.

If the standard for airing a story becomes “the government must agree to be interviewed,” then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.

These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.

CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that “low point.” By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.

We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of “Gold Standard” reputation for a single week of political quiet.

I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight.

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Rob Reiner was 78, and Michele Reiner was 68.

The news was confirmed by TMZ which also reports that their bodies were found with knife wounds.

This is a developing story.

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Jane Goodall, one of the most important and consequential figures in global conservation, has died, the Jane Goodall Institute announced.

The institute says she died while on a speaking tour in California.

On a personal note, few other people have had an impact on my life like Dr. Goodall.

In 1962, a young woman named Jane Goodall stepped into the African forest.

What she would discover shattered our understanding of the place of human beings in the world.

She revealed that chimpanzees use tools, form bonds, and experience emotions.

Dr. Goodall’s discoveries forced the world to redefine man.

These discoveries shattered long-held scientific assumptions and bridged the distance between humans and the rest of creation.

Dr. Goodall revolutionized primatology and helped shape global conservation policy.

When Dr. Goodall went into the forest, she was attacked and derided by male scientists who laughed at the idea that she could offer anything of import.

She stood alone in the field and proved them wrong.

Because of her, countless women have pursued careers in biology, ecology, conservation, and other fields in STEM.

Over the years, as I have traveled through the world and met some of the most prominent women in all areas of conservation and environmental sciences, all but a few told me they were inspired to get into their field by Jane Goodall’s example.

We have lost a giant.

This is a developing story and there will be updates.

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