Bill Maher recently said CBS News boss Bari Weiss told him that while some employees remain unhappy with her leadership, others inside the organization have embraced the editorial direction she’s bringing to the network’s news division.
The comments, published Thursday in a wide-ranging Vanity Fair profile, offered a rare public account of how Weiss allegedly views the internal reaction to one of the TV news industry’s most closely watched leadership transitions.
The host of HBO’s “Real Time” recently asked Weiss what it was like running CBS News amid ongoing scrutiny over her editorial approach.
“I was curious to just ask her, ‘What’s it like going to work every day there? Are they putting Kick Me signs on your back?’” Maher told Vanity Fair.
According to Maher, Weiss responded that her internal critics “are too cowardly to say anything to her face.” When he asked whether anyone at CBS supported her vision for the news division, Maher said Weiss replied that “not everyone at the network is crazy” and that some staff members “feel liberated.”
The remarks provide a unique glimpse into the internal dynamics at CBS News, where Weiss has emerged as one of the industry’s most closely watched—and closely scrutinized—news executives. Her leadership has prompted debate across the media business, with supporters arguing she is broadening the range of viewpoints represented in coverage and critics questioning whether her editorial philosophy represents a break from the network’s more traditional approach.
Maher, who has become one of Weiss’ most prominent public defenders, described her in the interview as “another critic of progressives and supporter of Israel who has found relevance in the Trump era.”
The Weiss discussion came during a broader conversation about Maher’s own evolving politics, his criticism of the Democratic Party’s left wing and his relationship with President Trump. Elsewhere in the interview, Maher said he has encouraged Weiss to tune out internal opposition, framing it as an inevitable consequence of challenging newsroom tradition.
CBS News did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
