In an awkward exchange, President Donald Trump took credit for new “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil’s promotion at the network during their interview Tuesday.
“A year and a half ago, our country was dead. We had a dead country. You wouldn’t have a job right now,” he told Dokoupil, who’s already facing criticism for his MAGA-friendy coverage. “If [Kamala Harris] got in, you probably wouldn’t have a job right now. Your boss ― he’s an amazing guy ― might be bust.”
Trump was ostensibly referring to David Ellison, the Skydance CEO who now owns CBS after the Trump administration approved his acquisition of Paramount, the network’s parent company. In the lead-up to the controversial approval of the deal, Ellison signaled that under his purview, CBS News would take a rightward shift.
Trump’s comment appeared to confuse Dokoupil, who co-hosted “CBS Mornings” until starting his new gig this month.
“Might be what?” he asked Trump.
“Might be bust,” Trump repeated. “I doubt it in his case, but you never know. Let me just tell you, you wouldn’t have this job. You wouldn’t have this job, certainly, whatever the hell they’re paying you.”
Dokoupil returned to the comment when they wrapped up the interview.
“I do think I’d have this job even if the other guys won,” he told the president, who replied: “Yeah, but at a lesser salary.”
Dokoupil replaced “CBS Evening News” anchors Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson, who both left the network last month amid the shakeups under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, a conservative former New York Times columnist. In Dokoupil’s message introducing himself to viewers on New Year’s Day, he argued that the media has “put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites.”
