'60 Minutes' anchor Scott Pelley fired by CBS News for petulant tantrum he threw at staff meeting

CBS News fired Scott Pelley Tuesday night, a little more than 24 hours after the longtime 60 Minutes correspondent unleashed an angry tirade in a staff meeting during which he accused CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss of "murdering" the newsmagazine and mocked the credentials of his new boss, Nick Bilton.

Pelley's termination came after Weiss and Bilton, who was named the new executive producer of 60 Minutes last week, made numerous attempts to ingratiate themselves with the longtime correspondent. The two, along with other CBS News executives, met with Pelley late Tuesday afternoon in an attempt to smooth things over after Pelley had publicly insulted them a day earlier in front of the entire 60 Minutes staff. 

"Despite yesterday's misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together. You made clear that you are not interested in such a path," Bilton wrote in the letter to Pelley notifying him of his firing. "Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear," the new executive producer continued, adding, "your employment with CBS News is terminated for cause effective immediately."

In a brief interview with The New York Times following his dismissal, Pelley, 68, said, “I have been in combat in Afghanistan. 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,” perhaps suggesting that his unprofessional behavior in the workplace is a result of suffering from some form of PTSD. 

According to Puck senior correspondent Dylan Byers, Weiss and Bilton went into Tuesday's meeting with Pelley determined to find "a path forward," but found Pelley "was not open minded about reaching detente." After his remarks to The New York Times, Pelley put out a statement of his own that seemed to pick up where his tirade on Monday left off, accusing Weiss and the new CBS leadership of trying to "curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration." He also claimed that "new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified." Pelley didn't list any specific examples.

In his more than 20 years at 60 Minutes, Pelley has been involved in several of the venerable newsmagazines high-profile failures. One of the most insidious of those 60 Minutes segments involved Pelley conducting an interview with former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, who promoted the hoax suggesting that President Trump was compromised by Russia during his first term. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger chronicled many examples of the show's straight-up liberal bias or flat-out inaccuracies on a host of issues, including border, transgenderism, climate, species extinctions, Russiagate, the Hunter Biden laptop, and more. Watch his recap of some of these failings below.