Turmoil at CBS News After Margaret Brennan Claims the Nazis ‘Weaponized’ Free Speech To Carry Out the Holocaust in Latest Crisis for Network

The embattled CBS News host Margaret Brennan is facing calls for her firing after she awkwardly claimed that free speech empowered the Nazis to kill millions in the Holocaust.On Sunday, Ms. Brennan interviewed Secretary of State Rubio and challenged him about Vice President Vance’s criticism of European officials’ efforts to curb free speech.She noted that Mr. Vance’s comments were made at the Munich Security Conference and then made a historically inaccurate claim that the Nazis “weaponized” free speech to carry out the Holocaust. Munich was the birthplace of the Nazis and a major hub of Nazi activity during their rule.“[Vance] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups,” Ms. Brennan said. “The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that. That the censorship was specifically about the right…”Ms. Brennan confronting Secretary Rubio. CBS NewsMr. Rubio interjected to point out the inaccuracy of the statement, saying, “Well, I have to disagree with you…Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide.”“The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities…they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany…So that’s not an accurate reflection of history,” he said.Ms. Brennan did not respond to being called out for her statement, as she said she was being told that they were out of time for the segment and had to go to a commercial break. Ms. Brennan’s assertion that free speech was “weaponized to conduct a genocide” appeared to be an effort to put Mr. Rubio on the spot about his colleague and potential rival for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, Mr. Vance.Kamala Harris sits down with Bill Whitaker for her ’60 Minutes’ interview. CBS NewsHer command of the facts was shaky. Rather than being a bastion of free speech, Nazi Germany is recorded in history as a repressive society that censored speech critical of the governing regime or its vision for the world. In 1933, students across 34 towns in Germany burned more than 25,000 books that were deemed to be “Un-German.” After Hitler took power, there was zero tolerance for dissent among Germans. Non-Jewish dissidents and political opponents were some of the first inmates in the Nazi’s nascent system of concentration camps, where they were imprisoned under extremely harsh conditions and where many of them were murdered.Meanwhile, free speech advocate Greg Lukianoff notes that the Weimar Republic’s restrictions on speech were seized upon by the Nazis, before they came to power, to “claim they were being targeted for exposing the international conspiracy to suppress ‘true’ Germans,” which helped them gain support.CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. As of Monday morning, Ms. Brennan had not posted on X to respond to the controversy either. On Sunday afternoon, she tweeted out the full interview with Mr. Rubio, but did not tweet out separate moments from the interview, as she did with other segments from the broadcast.Ms. Brennan has a history of tussling with Mr. Vance. During the vice presidential debate, Mr. Vance called her out for “fact checking” him despite CBS News promising not to do so during pre-debate negotiations. Mr. Vance has continued to give Ms. Brennan interviews, during which he’s called her out for bias and inaccuracies. During their sparring, Mr. Vance has repeatedly corrected Ms. Brennan’s facts.CBS Mornings’ Tony Dokoupil interviews Ta-Nehisi Coates. CBS NewsAs for Ms. Brennan’s remarks on Sunday, Mr. Vance shared the clip and wrote, “This is a crazy exchange. Does the media really think the holocaust was caused by free speech?”Elon Musk wrote, “One of the first things Hitler did upon gaining power was apply aggressive censorship.”The influential tech investor who’s a co-host of the hugely influential “All In” podcast, David Sacks, wrote on X that “This represent[s] the entire Legacy Media. Their pathological hatred of Trump has led them into a cul-de-sac of absurdity and irrelevance. They have zero credibility left.”A conservative writer at National Review, Michael Brendan Dougherty, said, “This is the first time I’ve heard the theory that the Holocaust wasn’t conducted with gas chambers but with free speech zones.”Wendy McMahon. CEO of CBS News. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, FileSome suggested the comment should lead CBS News to fire Ms. Brennan. Conservative commentator Mark Davis wrote, “She cannot keep this gig. Even @CBSNews must have a shred of self-awareness.”Another user, Morgan Warstler, wrote, “CBS HAS TO FIRE Margaret Brennan…The public airwaves cannot be licensed to a company that believes ‘free speech can be weaponized.’ She needs to apologize or be removed.”Ms. Brennan’s interview was not the only time on Sunday that CBS made its views clear about Germany and free speech. Hours later, CBS’ “60 Minutes,” the news division’s flagship program with exponentially more viewers than “Face the Nation,” aired a glowing segment about Germany’s restrictions on speech. In one clip, CBS News journalists tagged along with “six armed officers” as they raided someone’s apartment for allegedly posting a racist cartoon online. The officials seized the suspect’s laptop and phone. The segment also noted that “at the same time” as that raid occurred, there were more than 50 similar raids happening across Germany. Margaret Brennan (R) and Norah O’Donnell (L) have been accused of exhibiting liberal bias during the vice presidential debate. Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesA prosecutor who leads one of the 16 task force units aimed at enforcing Germany’s speech laws, Michael Laue, told “60 Minutes” that his office alone handles about 3,500 cases per year. The CBS correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, asked the head of a human rights organization in Germany, HateAid, Josephine Ballon, about concerns the enforcement of such restrictions “feels like the surveillance that Germany conducted 80 years ago.”“There is no surveillance,” Ms. Ballon responded. Ms. Ballon also dismissed concerns that speech restrictions are a threat to democracy as she insisted that “free speech needs boundaries.”Ms. Brennan speaks during Sunday’s controversial broadcast of ‘Face the Nation’. CBS News“Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated,” Ms. Ballon said.The segment ended with Ms. Alfonsi giving a German prosecutor, Matthäus Fink, the closing word as he argued that limitations on free speech, even jailing people for speech, are good. The two free speech segments come as CBS News is in turmoil over allegations of left-wing bias and antisemitism. The controversies are having a broader effect in Hollywood, where the long-awaited acquisition of CBS’ parent company, Paramount, by the son of the billionaire Larry Ellison, may now be endangered. In October, CBS News was pilloried after top executives criticized one of their own morning anchors, Tony Dokoupil, for asking the anti-Israel best-selling author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, why he left out details about the daily threats Israel faces in his book that harshly criticizes the Jewish state. Internal backlash over Mr. Dokoupil’s line of question burst into the open after staffers leaked a recording of a meeting in which the head of news gathering, Adrienne Roark, said in a meeting on the anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack that Mr. Dokoupil’s interview did not meet CBS’ editorial standards.President Trump denounces CBS News in a conversation with Dan Bongino. RumbleAs the controversy swirled within the halls of CBS News’ Manhattan headquarters, the inexperienced leadership team at the Tiffany Network initially planned to bring in a “DEI strategist,” but that plan was killed off after the strategist’s posting referring to Senator Tim Scott as “Uncle Tim,” a play on “Uncle Tom,” came to light. Instead, there was a meeting held where staffers suggested that “Israel’s existence as a state should be part of fair conversation.” Eventually, the head of CBS’ parent company, Shari Redstone, who is Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, publicly criticized the way the network had handled the incident and even took Mr. Dokoupil to lunchAmid the internal drama, a copy of an email from CBS News’ editorial standards and practices unit, Mark Memmott, was leaked, which told employees in August not to refer to Jerusalem as “being in Israel” because “its status is disputed.”“Israel regards Jerusalem as its ‘eternal and undivided’ capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem — occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war — as the capital of a future state,” Mr. Memmott said. Also leaked was an e-mail that was sent the day after the October 7 attack that cautioned staffers against referring to individual members of Hamas as terrorists without including further details about the person they were reporting on. CBS News has been denounced by President Trump for its editing of the ’60 Minutes’ Kamala Harris interview. CBS NewsBut by far, the biggest problem CBS, and Paramount, are facing is the fallout from the “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview, which aired in October just days before the election. After releasing, perhaps accidentally, additional clips from the interview that did not make the “60 Minutes” cut, CBS News was exposed for selectively editing the interview in a way that made the vice president sound more coherent. Conservatives alleged the changes were made to help boost Ms. Harris’ chances of winning the 2024 election. The network denied that it deceptively edited the interview but steadfastly refused to release the full transcript, which it has done for other interviews, until February when the Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC ordered it to. The transcripts and raw video of the interview show that when Ms. Harris was asked a question about Prime Minister Netanyahu, “60 Minutes” editors removed the rambling, “word salad” beginning of her answer, thereby making her sound more concise. The interview was broadcast at a time when Ms. Harris was being widely criticized for avoiding news interviews and for being unable to express herself coherently. President Trump is suing the network for $20 billion for its editing of the “60 Minutes” interview, and the FCC is now investigating CBS, which is legally obligated to be fair in its news programming due to its exclusive use of free public airwaves, for “news distortion.” The CEO of Skydance Media, David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, is planning to buy Paramount, parent company of CBS. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for CinemaConIt has been widely reported that executives at Paramount are exploring a settlement with Mr. Trump over his “60 Minutes” lawsuit, in order to remove some friction that could be keeping the Skydance deal from consummation. The FCC has so far left open the option of delaying or halting the transaction due to CBS News’ alleged misconduct. However, the Wall Street Journal reports that there are concerns within Paramount that executives could be put in legal jeopardy if they settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit and are accused of impropriety such as bribery. All the controversies have cast a harsh spotlight on Ms. Brennan, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, and the CEO of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, who lacks editorial experience and has built a leadership team composed of local news veterans. The future of these CBS News leaders is in doubt as Paramount focuses on smoothing the way for the completion of the Skydance acquisition.

Turmoil at CBS News After Margaret Brennan Claims the Nazis ‘Weaponized’ Free Speech To Carry Out the Holocaust in Latest Crisis for Network

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