Tension at CBS News as Mamdani Cancels ‘Sunday Morning’ Interview Due To Coverage of His Anti-Israel Wife: Report

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has reportedly backed out of an interview with CBS News’ iconic “Sunday Morning” program after the network reported on his wife, Rama Duwaji, and her history of liking social media posts celebrating the October 7 massacre.Last week, CBS News picked up on a report from Jewish Insider about Ms. Duwaji and her social media posts. Jewish Insider reported that Ms. Duwaji, who despises Israel, “liked’ Instagram posts that “unambiguously celebrated” Hamas’s October 7 attack, which killed more than 1,200 Jews. Network management’s decision to pick up the Jewish Insider piece angered staffers at reliably liberal CBS News, according to Status, a closely read, far-left media newsletter.It also appears to have frustrated Mr. Mamdani, as Vanity Fair’s Aidan McLaughlin reported that the mayor backed out of an interview with “CBS News Sunday Morning.” Status’s Natalie Korach confirmed the reporting, writing that the breakdown in negotiations for the interview occurred after CBS “seized on years-old Instagram” activity by Ms. Duwaji. Status founder Oliver Darcy had previously objected to CBS News choosing to cover Ms. Duwaji’s posts because she is a private citizen.Some of the posts Ms. Duwaji liked included screenshots from a video taken by Hamas attackers on October 7. One post said that Israel’s response to October 7 would lead to Gazans being “punished for wanting freedom from apartheid.”A person “close” to the mayor told Ms. Korach, “It feels pretty clear that Bari Weiss views her role, whether at CBS or The Free Press, as being a political adversary to the mayor.”The comment refers to CBS’s newly-installed editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, who also founded the anti-woke, pro-Israel outlet, the Free Press. Earlier this week, an associate of Ms. Mamdani lashed out at Ms. Weiss over CBS’s report on Ms. Duwaji. CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. Mr. Mamdani has sought to brush off questions about his wife. During a press conference last week, he told reporters, “My wife is the love of my life, and she’s also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall.”A City Hall spokesman has also sought to distance the mayor from his wife’s social media activity, telling Jewish Insider, “Mayor Mamdani has been clear and consistent: Hamas is a terrorist organization, October 7th was a horrific war crime, and he has condemned that violence unequivocally.”While the mayor’s associates are directing their fire at Ms. Weiss, CBS is not the only outlet that was interested in discussing Ms. Duwaji’s social media activity. The Free Press’s Olivia Reingold reported that CNN had invited her to participate in a “debate” on the matter, but she said it was canceled. Ms. Reingold argued that Ms. Duwaji’s social media activity is newsworthy because of who she is married to and asked if the mayor agrees with his wife’s views. She noted that establishment media outlets published a “zillion” articles about the political views of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife. CBS’s reporting on Ms. Duwaji also appears to be in line with the wishes of David Ellison, the CEO of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance.Mr. Ellison, who, along with his centibillionaire father, Larry, is strongly pro-Israel, acquired Paramount last summer. While the Federal Communications Commission was weighing whether or not to approve the merger of Paramount and Skydance, lawyers for Skydance made written commitments to produce fair journalism. In 2024, CBS News came under intense scrutiny after the Free Press obtained internal CBS News documents from its standards and practices unit that warned staffers against referring to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Staffers were also warned not to refer to Hamas members as “terrorists.” Around the same time, a then-co-host of “CBS Mornings,” Tony Dokoupil, was reprimanded for his tone during his questioning of the virulently anti-Israel author Ta-Nehisi Coates. CBS News’ flagship program, “60 Minutes,” was also criticized for two segments about the Gaza war. The American Jewish Committee called one of the segments “shockingly one-sided” and said it “relied heavily on misguided information.”The network’s coverage of the war against Hamas frustrated the then-chairwoman of Paramount, Shari Redstone, who said that the anti-Israel slant factored into her decision to sell the company to the Ellisons. She told the New York Times that she hoped the Ellisons would be able to get CBS News’ anti-Israel bias under control, something she’d been unable to do.

Tension at CBS News as Mamdani Cancels ‘Sunday Morning’ Interview Due To Coverage of His Anti-Israel Wife: Report

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