Breaking: Bari Weiss Is Planning a Bloodbath at 60 Minutes

Trump wants to "make a fortune" through the Iran war, the new Attorney General is even worse on Epstein, and Trump officials are fighting Iran war disinformation after gutting disinformation agencies

Good evening. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

The president of the United States posted on social media this morning that he wants to “make a fortune” with his Iran war. Bari Weiss is planning major layoffs at 60 Minutes. The acting Attorney General is even worse on Epstein than Pam Bondi. And Trump is blaming the war’s unpopularity on disinformation, despite having dismantled the agencies built to fight it.

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Now, let’s get into it.

The President Would Like to Make a Fortune With His War

At some point Friday morning, the 79-year-old commander in chief of the most powerful military on earth sat down and typed the following into Truth Social:

“With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A ‘GUSHER’ FOR THE WORLD???”

Three question marks. The war is five weeks old. Fifteen American service members have been killed. Oil is up more than 50 percent since February 28. And the president’s public contribution to this moment is a Truth Social post about making a fortune.

To be clear about what Trump is proposing here: seizing a sovereign nation’s oil as spoils of war is not a plan that exists anywhere in American law, international law, or the operational orders of Operation Epic Fury. It’s a thing he typed. With a gusher metaphor.

What’s notable is that this comes one day after Trump gave a primetime address to the nation that managed to simultaneously promise the war was “nearing completion” and that the U.S. would strike Iran “extremely hard” for the next two to three weeks. Oil prices surged 11 percent after the speech.

Friendly reminder: this is the guy with the nuclear codes.

Bari Weiss Is Planning Mass Layoffs at 60 Minutes

When Bari Weiss took over CBS, she described her approach as “move fast and break things.” The things she’s breaking are: CBS News Radio, Anderson Cooper’s contract, the CBS Evening News ratings, and next, 60 Minutes.

Weiss is prepared to “blow it up as soon as the season is over” in May, according to multiple reports today. Layoffs are expected in June.

Correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega, and Scott Pelley are reportedly at risk. So are veteran hosts Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker. In their place, Weiss is expected to bring in younger journalists aligned with her editorial vision.

That means talent connected to The Free Press, the outlet Weiss founded.

Weiss says she wants to make the show “harder.” To understand what that means in practice, it helps to look at what she’s already criticized. Sharyn Alfonsi produced a segment on El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison that was pulled before airtime by new leadership before ultimately airing after staff pushback.

Scott Pelley is reportedly on the list partly because he’s been willing to criticize the Trump administration. These are not soft stories. They are exactly the kind of stories that make powerful people uncomfortable.

This is what media consolidation looks like when it’s moving fast. One editor-in-chief, backed by a new billionaire ownership structure, remaking American institutions to fit a narrower editorial vision.

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Meet Your Acting Attorney General. He’s Even Worse on Epstein.

Todd Blanche has been Trump’s personal defense attorney, his hush money trial companion, his classified documents lawyer, and the man who stood beside him when a New York jury found him guilty. He is now the acting attorney general of the United States.

The promotion took about four hours after Pam Bondi was fired Thursday. Blanche went straight to Fox News to make his case, and the first thing he wanted to talk about was Epstein. Specifically, that everyone should stop talking about Epstein.

“To the extent the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department,” Blanche said, “it should not be a part of anything going forward.”

Here is what Blanche’s Epstein record actually looks like. After the administration came under fire for burying the files, Blanche personally flew to interview Ghislaine Maxwell and returned with the news that Maxwell said she’d never seen Trump behave inappropriately around Epstein.

He then helped move Maxwell to a new facility that, by multiple accounts, was considerably more comfortable than her previous one. The investigation concluded there was no client list, no credible blackmail operation, and nothing else worth pursuing. Case closed. Blanche closed it.

The upgrade from Bondi to Blanche on the Epstein question is not an upgrade. He started his career putting people in prison, and now he’s making sure the right ones get out.

Trump Killed the Agencies That Fight Disinformation. Now He’s Fighting Disinformation.

Here is a timeline worth knowing.

In early 2025, the Trump administration shut down the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. It employed about 120 specialists and spent roughly $61 million a year tracking Russian, Chinese, and Iranian propaganda.

Trump officials also gutted the Voice of America’s Persian-language service right as Iran was becoming a front-burner issue. Then they disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Malign Influence Task Force.

Fast forward to 2026. Iran is spreading AI-generated disinformation: fake images of destroyed American aircraft, fabricated footage of the USS Abraham Lincoln on fire, staged evidence of attacks that didn’t happen the way they were described.

Trump’s response, in a March 16 event: “They are a country that for years — I didn’t know this until recently — they’re a country based on disinformation. And now they’re using disinformation plus AI. And that’s a terrible situation.” He also accused American news outlets of “TREASON” for spreading Iranian propaganda, though couldn’t point to any examples.

The administration that dismantled America’s disinformation-fighting apparatus is now discovering, with what appears to be genuine surprise, that adversaries use disinformation during wars. And the experts who would have been tracking this are gone.

What You Can Do About It

Bari Weiss is remaking American television news one institution at a time, replacing veterans with Free Press alumni and calling it disruption.

The CBS Evening News is down below 4 million viewers. 60 Minutes is next. What she’s building is a media apparatus answerable to a specific worldview, funded by a specific class of people, aimed at a specific set of conclusions.

AlterNet America is the opposite of that. Reader-funded, no corporate ownership, no ideological benefactors. When you subscribe, you’re not just getting a newsletter. You’re making a bet that the press this country needs still exists somewhere outside the Skydance acquisition. Help us prove it. Subscribe today.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you Monday.

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