Unpacking 60 Minutes Saga: Scott Pelley Fired After Accusing Bari Weiss of “Murdering” the CBS News Show

Scott Pelley’s time at 60 Minutes is over.

CBS News fired the veteran correspondent June 2, with newly installed executive producer Nick Bilton informing him in a letter obtained by The New York Times that Pelley was “terminated for cause effective immediately.”

Pelley’s firing comes one day after he criticized CBS News’ leadership and voiced concern about the show’s future during a staff meeting—accusing CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss of “murdering 60 Minutes,” per a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times. 

In the letter acquired by the newspaper, Bilton wrote that Pelley, “hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” going on to call Pelley’s actions a “performative display of hostility” that “demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show.”

However, Pelley told The New York Times following his ouster that Bilton’s letter “betrays a complete misunderstanding of what we work for and what we live for at ’60 Minutes.'”

Bilton also sent a separate memo to 60 Minutes‘ staff notifying them that Pelley was no longer part of the network.

“I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly,” the memo read, according to CBS News. “I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.”