Bari Weiss Isn’t Selling Centrist News.

She’s Rebuilding Normal News at CBS.

Colby HallNov 25th, 2025, 10:42 am

1/2

Bari Weiss isn’t just critiquing the failures of legacy media anymore. As the recently appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News,she’s now in a position to rebuild it— and at the Jewish Leadership Conference, she explained exactly how she plans to do it.

Her diagnosis is blunt: every “centrist news” project crashes for the same reason — it treats the absence of disagreement as the remedy for polarization. It sands down charisma, splits every difference, and produces what she calls “tofu oatmeal,” journalism so bland and viewless that no one can taste a perspective, much less trust one.

Her alternative isn’t moderation. It’s transparency. Put people with genuinely different worldviews in the same studio and let them argue with full force, in good faith, on air, where viewers can see how the arguments are made. Actual pluralism, not neutrality theater.

This vision matters because Weiss has the authority to test it. Just last month, CBS News announced it was integrating The Free Press — her heterodox outlet and Substack’s breakout success — into its operations in a deal valued at roughly $150 million. Weiss was named editor-in-chief as part of that move, charged with shaping editorial priorities and driving innovation. She is partnering with CBS News President Tom Cibrowski, whose operational expertise provides institutional continuity. In other words: Weiss brings the editorial vision; Cibrowski ensures the engine keeps running.

And her mandate doesn’t come from CBS alone. The Skydance/Ellison acquisition of Paramount was explicitly framed as transformation, not preservation — and Weiss’s appointment signals that CBS News is part of that overhaul. Hers is a visionary approach, not a custodial one.

Her critique targets something deeper than polarization: fragmentation. Americans now live inside epistemic silos, with no shared civic arena where disagreements unfold in public. The broad middle of the country — the “75 percent” Weiss describes — hasn’t vanished. It’s just unrepresented. These are people who hold layered beliefs, aren’t chronically online, and don’t treat disagreement as personal offense. They believe pluralism is still possible. They just don’t see it practiced anywhere.

The institutions that once convened this middle didn’t lose them overnight. They drifted — toward narrower demographics, narrower incentives, narrower editorial cultures. What we still call “the mainstream” stopped being broadly representative and became something smaller: a subculture with prestige branding.

And into the empty space stepped the outrage operators, the personalities who monetize permanent combat. They didn’t conquer the middle. They moved into the vacuum institutions left behind.

Weiss’s answer is to rebuild the commons by making journalism visible again. Her example: Dana Loesch — former NRA spokesperson — debating Alan Dershowitz on guns. These aren’t carefully selected reps from the center-right and center-left, as she curiously labeled them respectively. They’re people with strong, conflicting convictions who can argue passionately and still in good faith. That’s the point. Weiss isn’t seeking moderation. She’s seeking honesty — disagreement is argued openly instead of being hidden behind the anchor desk.

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/bari-weiss-isnt-selling-centrist-news-shes-rebuilding-normal-news-at-cbs/

>>23904642

2/2

Another example: a Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action. Standard coverage gives viewers a neutral package and isolated commentary.But the real arguments — over history, precedent, framing, and impact — happen offstage, between editors and correspondents.

Weiss’s proposal is straightforward: move those disagreements onstage. Let viewers see how judgments are formed. Trust doesn’t come from insisting on neutrality. It comes from exposing the reasoning behind the reporting. Transparency doesn’t weaken authority. It rebuilds it.

And this is what Weiss is now tasked with bringing to CBS News. It’s an ambitious project with real obstacles.Legacy newsrooms were built around a unified institutional voice, not around airing internal argument. And the digital incentives remain unchanged:virality still beats substancein every algorithmic ranking.Shifting that culture requires more than rhetoric. It requires power — which Weiss now has.

Skeptics will say legacy outlets have attempted reinvention before and inertia always wins.But Weiss has something most reformers don’t: actual authority inside the building=, not a consulting role from the margins. If CBS News becomes a place where viewers can watch good-faith argument play out on air, it will be because she made it so.

This is where her “normalcy” frame becomes clarifying.She’s not trying to reinvent journalism. She’s trying to return it to its basic civic function: disagreements hashed out in the open, adults reasoning publicly, newsrooms acknowledging their perspectives instead of pretending not to have them.It’s not centrism. It’s a realistic model of how democratic discourse is supposed to work.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, maybe becauseMediaite founder Dan Abramscoined the term “marginalized moderate majority,” a couple of years ago.Turns out, the 75 percent doesn’t fear disagreement. It lives with it every day — at work, in families, in communities.What it lacks is an institution willing to reflect that reality.

Normal people haven’t disappeared. They’re just unrepresented.

And they’re waiting for a newsroom willing to treat them like they’re still the majority.

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/bari-weiss-isnt-selling-centrist-news-shes-rebuilding-normal-news-at-cbs/

Kash Patel Says Epstein Estate Refuses to Share Key Records With the FBI

PUBLISHED

NOV 25, 2025 AT 12:43 PM EST

1/2

FBI Director Kash Patel said this week in an interview with journalist Catherine Herridge that ==Jeffrey Epstein's estate is refusing to share

key records sought by investigators==.

He said the government and the estate hold “separate boxes” of information, limiting what the FBI can access as it reviews a new referral in the case.Patel noted that federal officials have repeatedly requested materials from the estate without success. He said the FBI will evaluate whatever evidence it can obtain as the inquiry moves forward.

Patel said on Catherine Herridge Reports, "Based on the new referral, we'll take a look at that and see what evidence comes, but there's an important distinction. The information that the government possesses versus the information that the Epstein estate possesses, those are two separate boxes of information and theEpstein estate has not been willing to share information with the U.S. government…and so even though we've requested them to do so."

Why It Matters

Patel's comments come as the Trump administration remains under pressure to release the so-called Epstein files, related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.The FBI and DOJ said earlier in the summer that there was no more information to be released, sparking backlash from MAGA supportersand Democrats alike after President Donald Trump promised that all information would be made public.

What To Know

Herridge asked Patelabout the case after the president signed a bill that set a 30-day deadline to force the release of the Epstein files.

The FBI director said he was working with the DOJ to determine what could lawfully be produced,but that there were also orders in place to keep certain details classified. Patel said he would try to keep redactions to a minimum.

"We have in our productions to Congress, which have been historic to this year, and we will treat every matter in the same fashion while upholding, always, victims' rights," Patel said.

https://www.newsweek.com/jeffrey-epstein-files-update-kash-patel-list-trump-11107172

>>23904680

2/2

Herridge also raised the issue of the DOJ probe announced in the past few weeks, looking into the relationship between Democrats and former President Bill Clinton. She asked if the investigation was limited to Democrats, to which Patel responded: "We'll just follow the facts."

On the issue of the Epstein estate and the files it holds, Patel said the FBI had a separate box of information from the estate, and that agents had asked to share the information to no avail.

Some of the files the estate holds have been released by the House Oversight Committee, including several thousand emails from Epstein to various contacts over the years.

As Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi had promised the Epstein files would be released, before seeming to backtrack, Herridge asked what Patel had to say to those skeptical of "actual justice" under this administration. Patel said the FBI's work showed a strong record of arresting violent felons and investigating alleged espionage.

What People Are Saying

President Donald Trump said in a recent post on Truth Social: "Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!"

California Democratic Representative Garcia told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on November 17:"We're fighting to ensure that those documents are released. And by the way, Republicans have tried to stall every single time they get more documents. They've not wanted to release them.We have, we're working with the Epstein estate. We expect even more documents to come out from the Epstein estate. But we alsoknow that what the DOJ has is enormous. It isdramatically more documents, photos, possibly videos that the Epstein estate does not have. And so that's what we need, and Pam Bondi should release those files now."

What Happens Next

Democrats in the House have promised more files from the Epstein estate will be released, while the Trump administration has yet to honor the law the president signed to force the release of DOJ files.

https://www.newsweek.com/jeffrey-epstein-files-update-kash-patel-list-trump-11107172

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell sues Trump official over mortgage fraud accusations

The lawsuit accuses Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte of targeting Swalwell over his constitutionally protected political speech.

Nov. 25, 2025, 6:23 PM EST

By Ryan J. Reilly and Gary Grumbach

Rep. Eric Swalwell is suing Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, accusing him of abusing his position to “concoct fanciful allegations of mortgage fraud” against Swalwell, a prominent critic of President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, says it is “patently false” that Swalwell, D-Calif., claimed a Washington, D.C., home as his primary residence and that Swalwell “explicitly disclaimedany intent to occupy the District of Columbia home as his primary residence in a sworn affidavit attached to his mortgage agreement.” The affidavit “made clear that the home would be his wife’s primary residence—not his own,” and Swalwell “was and remains a permanent resident of California,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit accuses Pulte of targeting Swalwell over his constitutionally protected political speech, breaching “the First Amendment’s bedrock prohibition on viewpoint-based retaliation.” It also says Pulte’s referral violates the Privacy Act of 1974, which was enacted “in the wake of President Nixon’s campaign against his political enemies.”

The suit notes that Pulte has made referrals against Trump’s political foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook, and it says there are no known referrals against anyone who supports Trump.

The case against James was tossed Monday after a federal judge found that Lindsey Halligan, who brought the indictment against James and has been serving as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was not lawfully appointed to her position.

Schiff and Cook have not been charged.

Cook sued and the Supreme Court has allowed her to remain in her post as it prepares to hear oral arguments in January.The investigation into Schiff has stalled, sources told NBC News last month, due to a lack of sufficient evidence to bring the charges.

NBC News first reported this month on a letter Pulte sent to the Justice Department about Swalwell’s mortgage.Swalwell’s lawsuit says the leak of Pulte’s referral letter to the media “occurred with remarkable speed.”

A spokesperson for Pulte did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. A spokesperson for the Justice Department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pulte has defended his referrals over mortgage fraud allegations, saying during a CNBC interview in August afterreferring Cook, “It has necessarily nothing to do with the Fed governor. It has everything to do with mortgage fraud in the United States, and if we see it, we’re going to do something about it."

Swalwell alleged in his lawsuit that shortly after NBC News published an article about hiscriminal referral, “prominent conservative commentators and accounts” released “specific details about the referral,” like the value of his home. The lawsuit says that “coordinated nature of these disclosures is further evidenced by the fact that they appeared online before DOJ had received any written referral from Pulte.”==

The disclosures,Swalwell said, “harmed Plaintiff’s reputation at a critical juncture in his career: the very moment when he had planned to announce his campaign for Governor of California.” He added that “the widespread publication of information about the home where his wife and young children reside has exposed him to heightened security risks and caused him significant anguish and distress. (Turns out Swalwell that he is not eligible to run as President. How seriously arrogant this lying asshole is?)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/eric-swalwell-sues-trump-official-bill-pulte-mortgage-fraud-allegation-rcna245970

Jesse Watters

@JesseBWatters

🚨JUST IN: Stephen Miller just EXPOSED the DEMOCRATS’ PLOT… to turn America into “SOMALIA” 🚨

“It’s the Somalification of America — easier to rule over a divided, chaotic empire than a functioning, high-trust, middle-class society.”

“That’s their model for America: to make the whole country into a version of Somalia. Everything they do tracks back to that goal.”

https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/1993499388048478589?s=20

Eric Swalwell says military can be a 'check' on Donald Trump to 'save us'

Six Democratic lawmakers urged service members to 'refuse illegal orders' from the president in a video

November 25, 2025 8:26pm EST

California gubernatorial candidate and Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell claimed that members of the military are telling him they can be a "check" on President Donald Trump.

On Don Lemon's show Monday, Swalwell discussed the controversy over a video of six Democratic lawmakers urging service members to "refuse illegal orders" from Trump.

The Department of War later announced on X that it launched a formal review into allegations of misconduct against Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, for appearing in the video.

Swalwell argued that the Trump administration "told on" itself by going after Kelly for his call to resist "illegal orders" and revealed that some service members have been behaving as a "check" on the president.

"What gives me hope, and I talk to service members all the time. They tell me that I don't appreciate enough and the public doesn't appreciate enough that while Congress is not a check on the president anymore, and the judiciary at the Supreme Court is hardly a check, military members have told me, ‘We can be a check,'" Swalwell said. (Sure the military is talking to Swalwell? KEK what a joke he is.)

"They’re essentially saying, ‘We’re not going to betray our oath to the Constitution because this guy tells us to.’ While it's not codified that way — they're not a branch of government on their own— their honor and integrity might just save us."

Swalwell agreed with Lemon that the Trump administration and, by extension, Republicans are now telling service members to "ignore the Constitution."

"To me, the only reason you’d go after Mark Kelly if he’s telling soldiers, ‘You don’t have to follow an unlawful order’ — and they don’t — is if you intend to carry out unlawful orders," Swalwell said. "If you don’t intend to carry out unlawful orders, why do you care that somebody would say that?"

Swalwell's comments came the same day Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., warned military members on CNN that there would be consequences for them if they went after Kelly.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

"Donald Trump is going to be gone in a couple of years," Gallego said. "And if you’re part of the military that is going after sitting senators, sitting members of Congress and part of the weaponization of government, there will be consequences, without a doubt."

(Swalwell has no idea how many crimes he committed, the government knows. Thats how stupid he is!)

Lindsay Kornick is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.

ABC News

@ABC

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and supporters of the CROWN ACT gathered in Philadelphia to sign the bill into law on Tuesday.The law is designed to prevent hair discrimination in the workplace, schools, and places of business in Pennsylvania.KEK

https://abcnews.link/aNqIJOL

4:06 PM · Nov 25, 2025

·

121.8K

Views

https://x.com/ABC/status/1993426036558852596?s=20