Tony Dokoupil’s ‘embarrassing’ first days at CBS Evening News savaged by staff: ‘It’s state TV’

Network staffers and insiders are so far unimpressed with Tony Dokoupil’s “embarrassing” debut as the new CBS Evening News anchor, raging about the program’s “MAGA” pivot while fuming that Dokoupil is practicing “journalism malpractice” and pro-Trump propaganda.

“It’s state TV,” one network staffer declared.

At the same time, multiple sources have told The Independent that during a commercial break of his Saturday evening conversation with Dokoupil, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said he was only sitting down for his first “mainstream press interview” because editor-in-chief Bari Weiss approached him – and he liked how the network was treating the administration.

“For the record, Tammy, I think this is my first mainstream press interview yet,” Hegseth declared, according to four sources with knowledge of the matter. “We did it at Bari's request and because CBS News did something right on this.”

A network source familiar with the ad break conversation told The Independent that they witnessed Hegseth turning and looking off camera to make the comments to his handlers during a commercial break. The secretary was not addressing Dokoupil during that exchange.

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While it wasn’t immediately clear what Hegseth was referring to when he said CBS “did something right,” his remarks came days after Weiss controversially spiked a 60 Minutes story on the notoriously violent CECOT prison because it didn’t sufficiently represent the Trump administration’s side of the issue.

The Independent has reached out to representatives for CBS News, Weiss and the Department of Defense (renamed the Department of War by the administration) for comment.

Meanwhile, Dokoupil – the former CBS Mornings host who was handpicked by Weiss to be the face of her reboot of the nightly flagship show – has taken heat from the network’s journalists and media observers alike over the MAGA-friendly direction of the new CBS Evening News, as well as the arrogant attitude he’s displayed in recent days.

One particular point of embarrassment, CBS News sources noted, was Dokoupil jumping into the social media comments section and boasting that he would be “more accountable and more transparent” than legendary anchor Walter Cronkite, who once manned the network’s weeknight news program.

“I mean, this is all so hilarious but also so sad and pathetic,” one network staffer told The Independent.

Dokoupil’s declaration that he would be better than Cronkite came in response to critics who took him to task for his New Year’s Day video message criticizing the legacy media for “missing the story” by focusing too much on “academics” and “elites” instead of listening to the “average American.” He also took credit for scrapping the program’s handbook and replacing it with “5 simple values,” one of which is merely: “We love America.”

All the while, CBS posted short-form social media clips showing Dokoupil approaching random travelers at a train station and asking them to pronounce his last name, prompting network staffers to question the marketing and promotional strategy around the reboot. “Quite the humiliating ritual,” one employee told The Independent. “This is just embarrassing.”

With the relaunch of the perennially third-place show already racked by internal chaos, which included last-minute changes by Weiss and the optics of Dokoupil using a private plane to bounce from city-to-city on his “Live From America” tour, the network’s initial debut plans had to be scrapped due to the invasion of Venezuela and capture of deposed leader Nicolás Maduro.

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With Dokoupil already in San Francisco ahead of the first stop on the “Live From America” launch (which had recently been changed from the proposed first destination of Miami), he made his first appearance as evening host from a local TV affiliate during the program’s Saturday night edition.

While his sooner-than-planned debut included a high-profile “exclusive” interview with Hegseth, who recently remade the Pentagon press corps into a pro-Trump cheering section, the lengthy conversation was pilloried by both CBS News journalists and outside reporters for supposedly being “unchallenging” and acquiescent.

Variety called the interview an “inauspicious sign of where CBS News is headed” as the Trump administration’s perspective was “aired so thoroughly as to raise the question of when an interview becomes a press release.” Oliver Darcy at Status News, meanwhile, labeled the multi-segment sitdown a “softball interview” that was criticized by insiders as disastrous.

Indeed, one CBS News source who spoke to The Independent blasted the “embarrassing” interview, particularly because it comes in the wake of the Pentagon pushing out reporters and news outlets who would not agree to new restrictive rules on covering the department.

“Let’s not forget Hegseth is the same guy who threw journalists out of the Pentagon for refusing to sign a loyalty oath, including CBS,” the source noted. “But hey, Bari is useful for pushing his propaganda and Tony is quite happy to play along. Shameful.”

That same source, who had knowledge of the comments Hegseth made during an ad break about the reasons he accepted the interview request, added that there was also an appearance of a “quid pro quo” between the administration and network.

“Anyone with half a brain will know that if CBS gets a high-profile Trump administration interview that nobody else has, it’s because CBS has sold out its soul, values and ethics,” they declared. “This isn’t journalism. It’s state TV.”

Another reporter at the network also brought up Dokoupil’s combative 2024 interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates about Israel and Palestine, which led CBS News management at the time to reprimand the then-CBS Mornings star for violating editorial practices.

It was that kerfuffle, incidentally, that resulted in Dokoupil becoming a favorite of Weiss’ well before Paramount CEO David Ellison named her editor-in-chief and bought her “anti-woke” center-right site The Free Press for $150 million.

“If he had questioned Hegseth with half the vigor of his Coates interview, it would’ve been more substantive. Instead, it was basically a platform for the administration,” the reporter said. “It was like watching a toothless Fox News segment.”

Since making his official debut as the CBS Evening News anchor on Monday night, Dokoupil has only seen the criticism pile on – whether it is over technical snafus on set or the continued belief that Dokoupil and Weiss are pushing a Trump-friendly agenda.

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During Monday’s broadcast, for instance, Dokoupil faced online mockery for his struggles to segue to a story about Hegseth’s targeting of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), which he initially thought would be a segment on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz dropping his bid for re-election over an ongoing fraud scandal.

“First day, big problems here,” a smiling Dokoupil apologetically said. While some observers said it was “not bad for the first night” and that Dokoupil “rolled with it quite well,” others weren’t so kind.

“That sh*t show was trending on X,” a network staffer said, adding that Weiss is a “big X user” due to her Twitter Files involvement. “When Bari and Tony have Elon’s MAGA slop site X dunking on them and their sorry pivot of turning the legendary CBS Evening News into low-end Trump TV, you don’t just have problems. You have a pile of crap no one wants.”

However, it was Tuesday’s broadcast that really brought out the rhetorical knives. Broadcasting from Miami on the first stop of the revised “Live From America” tour, CBS Evening News aired a largely friendly interview with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the administration's crackdown on alleged fraud and immigration violations in the Minneapolis area. The network was also embedded with Noem – decked out in her standard tactical gear and jeans – for an ICE raid.

“The framing of the footage resembled less an exercise in accountability journalism than a ride-along that appeared designed to flatter the administration,” Darcy noted.

On top of that, despite it being the fifth anniversary of the January 6 Capitol attacks, the program barely mentioned it. “President Trump today accused Democrats of failing to prevent the attack on the Capitol, while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the president of 'whitewashing' it,” Dokoupil noted in his brief comments on Tuesday.

“Some high-profile CBS News staffers were aghast last night when Dokoupil's brief mention of the Jan. 6 anniversary was a both-sides mess,” CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on Wednesday, a sentiment that was shared by staffers who spoke with The Independent.

However, it was the lighthearted segment at the end of the broadcast that sparked even more outrage inside the CBS newsroom.

“Marco Rubio, we salute you. You are the ultimate Florida man,” Dokoupil declared after cheerfully running down the Secretary of State’s “impressive” portfolio within the administration.

The end segment, referred to as a “bon bon” on the show’s production call sheets, also saw the program sharing AI-generated images depicting Rubio in a number of different jobs – including the “new Shah of Iran” and the next Minnesota governor.

“What the hell was that Rubio segment??? So weird,” a CBS News reporter said.

“Journalism malpractice is what that Rubio love letter was,” another insider added. “In one ender Tony, Bari and Kim just took a giant dump on the decades of incredible journalism the Evening News has told since its inception. It’s beyond embarrassing, and those three are too full of themselves to even see.”

The insider was also referring to CBS Evening News executive producer Kim Harvey, who has increasingly come under fire amid the rollout of the new show, which saw Dokoupil replace the two-anchor team of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois less than a year after they took over for Norah O’Donnell.

“She is a yes person that is not just drinking the Bari Kool-Aid, but like injecting it in her veins, because that's how she survives,” a network source said about Harvey.

The latest drama at CBS Evening News follows the uproar Weiss sparked by yanking a 60 Minutes segment on the Trump administration deporting Venezuelan migrants to the notoriously violent El Salvadoran prison CECOT.

Weiss’ decision, which she has since doubled down on in internal emails and public statements, has threatened to prompt a “revolt” among the show’s staff, sources told The Independent. The reporter behind that segment decried the move as “political,” seemingly referring to the president’s ongoing anger at the program as Ellison seeks Trump’s approval for his hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.

While Trump has heaped praise on Ellison and his ultrawealthy father Larry Ellison – a close MAGA confidant – since the politically fraught Paramount-Skydance merger, the president recently appeared to grow frustrated at the father-son duo over 60 Minutes’ coverage of him.

With the Ellisons desperate to make the Warner Bros. deal, despite the company’s board repeatedly rejecting their offers, the Paramount chief has reportedly assured Trump he’d make “sweeping changes” to CNN as part of a WBD takeover. He’s also done damage control behind the scenes over the 60 Minutes segment that incurred Trump’s wrath.

Meanwhile, since her arrival at the network in October, Weiss – a self-described “radical centrist” with minimal broadcast news experience – has drawn outrage from staff and media critics over her editorial decision-making, which many have claimed is part of the Ellisons' plan to push CBS News in a “MAGA-friendly” direction.