In his first major interview since being ousted from CBS, Pelley sat down with the New York Times and used the opportunity to respond to President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of his record and character. According to The Gateway Pundit, Pelley’s departure followed a public meltdown in which he accused CBS’s new editor in chief, Bari Weiss, of “murdering 60 Minutes,” a charge that underscored the bitterness of his split from the network.
President Trump, speaking last week with New York Post columnist Miranda Devine, did not mince words about the former anchor’s performance or priorities. Pelley is “terrible,” “a stiff,” and “afraid,” the President said, adding that “He’s part of this, you know, gang of crooked, stupid people that don’t care about our country,” while also blasting George Stephanopoulos for helping shield Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline from the public.
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Confronted with those remarks, Pelley told the Times he could live with being mocked for his demeanor but drew the line at any suggestion he lacked patriotism. “Stupid, I can, I can take that. Stiff, yeah, probably,” he told the New York Times’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro, before pivoting to a sweeping claim about his supposed “service” to the nation “in combat.”
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“Don’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,” he claimed, insisting he had “been shot at” and “spent nights in foxholes filling up with water in the desert.” He then took a direct swipe at President Trump’s record, declaring, “I’m not aware that the President of the United States has ever done any of those things for his country,” and even invited correction: “Please correct me if I’m wrong.”
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As the conversation grew more emotional, Pelley appeared to equate his journalism with the work of American warfighters on the front lines. Fighting back tears, he declared, “There is no democracy without journalism. It can’t be done, and that is why I am a journalist,” a statement that many critics saw as self-aggrandizing rather than humble.
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Pelley went on to portray himself as a likely target of conservative media ridicule, even as he continued to elevate his own role. After breaking down into tears, he said, “You know, on Fox News, they’re gonna just run the parts where I’m crying and say I’m a lunatic,” before laughing and adding, “It is the era we live in.”
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He further elaborated on his sense of mission, casting journalism as a patriotic calling that justified his rhetoric about “combat.” “You become a journalist because you love the First Amendment. You become a journalist because you love the country, and while all the other descriptions that the president used about me might be applicable, not that one,” he insisted, reiterating, “There is no democracy without journalism. It can’t be done, and that is why I am a journalist.”
In a follow-up phone interview with the Times, Pelley doubled down on his combat-themed language, again blurring the line between covering war and fighting one. “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,” he said, a formulation that, for many Americans who actually wore the uniform, only underscores how far some in the legacy media will go to portray themselves as heroes while continuing to attack a sitting President who champions the very country they so often disparage.
