Pentagon Slams ‘60 Minutes,’ CBS News for ‘Shameful’ Interview With Biden Official Claiming Trump Wasn’t Ready for Iran’s Response

CBS News’s flagship program, “60 Minutes,” is again facing criticism for liberal bias after airing a story highly critical of the Trump Administration, even as the network’s new owners have sought to implement a more balanced editorial stance.On Sunday night, “60 Minutes,” which has been running a series of segments over the last year criticizing President Trump’s policies, aired a segment focused on America’s “Operation Epic Fury,” which questioned the planning behind the strikes.One of the most recognizable “60 Minutes” correspondents, Lesley Stahl, who has had a contentious relationship with Mr. Trump, interviewed a former Biden Administration official, Mara Karlin, who sharply criticized the planning behind “Operation Epic Fury.”“They went into this war prepared for certain threats, like missiles. They did not go into this war prepared for other threats like drones hitting soft targets,” Ms. Karlin said. The “60 Minutes” segment did not contain any voices supporting the Trump Administration. Instead, Ms. Karlin was given a wide berth to make, unchallenged, a withering critique of Mr. Trump’s war strategy.When asked if any part of Iran’s response surprises her, she said, “Not really.”“If anyone were to war game this out, you knew there were a couple things the Iranian regime would do. They would always look at how to use cheap, tough to counter capabilities like drones in as many spots as possible,” she said. While Ms. Karlin criticized what she said was a lack of planning, she told Ms. Stahl that there is not “one magic solution” to counter the threat of Iranian drones.“And frankly, that’s kind of the history of warfare. You find multiple ways to counter different challenges, and then your enemy either catches up or they then get a counter to that counter,” she said. The segment prompted a fierce retort from a Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, who wrote on X, “This Democrat operative has no idea what she’s talking about, and it’s shameful she’d slander our military like this.”Mr. Parnell wrote that the Pentagon “quietly ensured that our defensive posture was in place” before the strikes on Iran began. “We are absolutely prepared for this fight. To suggest otherwise is a total fabrication,” he said. Other conservative commentators criticized Ms. Stahl for interviewing Ms. Karlin, who served as the acting deputy under secretary of defense for policy during the Biden Administration. A conservative journalist, Jerry Dunleavy, wrote on X, “Mara Karlin was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities under Defense Secretary Austin & President Biden — unclear to me why she would be an authority on this, given that she has been out of the Pentagon for a long time & has no insider knowledge.”A senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Rebeccah Heinrichs, wrote, “The U.S. is intercepting drones and destroying drone launchers and production facilities. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a challenge. We need to deploy newer technologies to intercept swarms probably before we preferred to but it’s a myth we weren’t aware or planning for this.”“Mara Karlin was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Plans during the Afghanistan withdrawal. Asking her how a war should be fought is like asking Fauci how to deal with a pandemic,” another user said. The Karlin interview comes as executives at CBS News have sought to make the network more balanced. Skydance Media, which bought CBS parent company Paramount Global, pledged in writing to the FCC prior to the acquisition that CBS News programming would better reflect a wide range of viewpoints across America. “60 Minutes,” however, has continued to air its series of anti-Trump reports that it had begun before Skydance took over. The chief executive of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, David Ellison, recently defeated Netflix in a bidding war for control of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. Mr. Ellison’s victory has sparked concerns among left-wing journalists that he will make drastic cuts at CNN and try to turn it into a conservative outlet. Last week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth criticized CNN for publishing a report that said the Trump Administration underestimated the impact the war would have on the Strait of Hormuz. “CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Mr. Hegseth said.CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

Pentagon Slams ‘60 Minutes,’ CBS News for ‘Shameful’ Interview With Biden Official Claiming Trump Wasn’t Ready for Iran’s Response

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