The newest hire at CBS News has blown up the goodwill it has worked so hard to earn with the Trump administration.
A White House official has slammed the network’s MAGA-curious editor, Bari Weiss, for hiring Jeremy Adler, a communications executive who previously worked for former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, a top foe of President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“The idea CBS would hire Liz Cheney’s flack who has worked to jail President Trump and make it impossible for anybody who supported the president to get hired is insanity,” the official told Axios.
The official added, “What the hell is Bari Weiss thinking?”
Cheney led the House’s probe into the MAGA supporters’ siege of the Capitol. Then, in 2024, she hit the trail to campaign for Trump’s Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris. Adler was deputy chief of staff and senior communications adviser for Cheney from 2019 to 2023.
Adler’s hiring to the CBS News communications team has not been announced publicly. The Axios report was the first to note that he was joining the network, which has operated with a right-wing bent since Weiss was appointed as editor-in-chief in October.
Top names, including correspondents Scott MacFarlane and Anderson Cooper, have since left CBS News or announced they will not renew their contracts. Status reports that MacFarlane was “appalled” when Weiss’s new host in the primetime evening news chair, Tony Dokoupil, gave the five-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection a both-sides treatment.
CBS did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. It declined to comment to Axios.
The White House also did not respond to request for comment.
Axios notes that Adler has a long career in GOP politics beyond just working for Cheney, who is no longer in Congress. He also worked at the Republican super PAC America Rising and was a regional spokesman for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.
CNN’s chief media analyst, Brian Stelter, hypothesized that someone at the White House leaked Adler’s hiring to Axios in hopes it would keep the hire from going through.
“This strongly suggests someone leaked Adler’s potential appointment to try to stop it from happening,” Stelter wrote on X, noting the White House official’s comment to Axios. “Does the Trump White House think it can veto CBS News hires, now?”
Trump is a personal friend of Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, whose son is the controlling owner and chief executive of Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS.
Paramount Skydance is now in the process of acquiring Warner Brothers Discovery, CNN’s parent company, threatening to upend the coverage of yet another major media entity. Such a deal would require approval by the Federal Communications Commission, which is among the reasons why critics speculate that the Ellisons are especially cozying up to Trump and his team.
