Stephen Miller made a bizarre pitch to 60 Minutes staffers after they protested their MAGA-curious boss’s controversial decision to pull a segment about the Trump administration’s deportation blitz.
The top Trump aide, who is credited as the architect of the administration’s hardline immigration agenda, threw a tantrum on Fox’s Jesse Watters Primetime Tuesday night when discussing CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss’s decision to shelve a story about the administration’s deportation flights to El Salvador. The decision ignited a firestorm within—and outside—the newsroom.
A leaked copy of the segment showed that it focused on hundreds of Venezuelan men who were shipped off to CECOT, a notorious El Salvadoran megaprison, after the Trump administration accused them of having ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.
“You have these 60 Minutes producers who are living in comfort and security in their West End condos, trying to make us feel sympathetic for these monsters,” Miller said.
“I’ll make a deal,” he went on. “We will pick someone at random that we send to CECOT, just a random lottery drawing, and they will spend one day overnight in your apartment. Who is taking that deal in 60 Minutes? Nobody, because they know that these are monsters who got exactly what they deserved.”
But Miller didn’t stop there. The White House deputy chief of staff, 40, called on the Trump-friendly leadership at CBS to “clean house” over the debacle.
“Every one of those producers at 60 Minutes engaged in this revolt, fire them. Clean house. Fire them. That’s what I say,” he demanded.
CBS News did not immediately return a request for comment.
Weiss reportedly put the episode on hold partly because she wanted 60 Minutes to interview Miller, even though journalists on the show had already reached out to the administration for comment. The Trump official told Fox that he didn’t recall anyone reaching out, though he conceded that messages could have gotten buried in communications inboxes.
Miller appeared to be taking the lead from his wife Katie, a former Trump official-turned-podcaster who similarly lectured 60 Minutes staff over the controversy.
“When you want to become the story, you’ve lost any shred of journalistic integrity,” she wrote in an X post. “The Legacy Media loves talking about themselves and is openly hostile to anyone who dare question their utter righteousness. 60 Minutes is a clear partisan program masquerading as impartial journalism.”
CBS is owned by Paramount, a media titan owned by the powerful Ellison family, whom President Donald Trump has described as his “friends” and “big supporters.”
In recent weeks, however, the president has been distancing himself from his wealthy pals after they launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
“For those people that think I am close with the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called ‘takeover,’ than they have ever treated me before. If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!” Trump said last week.
