The CBS News editor’s latest hires has other staffers wondering if they work for the ‘we love Israel’ network. Plus, Sean Hannity’s stolen valor and David Ellison finds a new MAGA friend.
“We love America. And we make no apologies for saying so,” CBS News declared at the beginning of this year, revealing one of the “five simple principles” that would guide the rebooted version of its flagship nightly news show.
However, based on who has been promoted and hired in recent months by the Tiffany Network’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, it would appear that support for another country is also a qualifying factor. That country is Israel.
Despite CBS News looking down the barrel of another round of crippling layoffs that could see as much as 15% of the newsroom cut, Weiss has made a point of bringing in a number of new hires while elevating others from within the company. Some of them have one thing in common with Weiss: their pro-Israel stance.
Jonah Kaplan, an investigative reporter for the network’s Twin Cities affiliate WCCO, revealed earlier this month that he was making the jump to the big leagues. “I’m humbled and grateful to announce that I’ll be joining @cbsnews as a Correspondent,” he posted on social media, calling it a “dream job” to be working for the “crown jewel of American journalism.”
Besides being an Emmy-winning journalist with 20 years of local news experience, Kaplan is also very outspoken in his support of Israel. The son of two rabbis, Kaplan has participated in parent company Paramount’s global inclusion week, sitting in on panels discussing the “American Jewish Experience Amidst Rising Antisemitism.”
Throughout his career, Kaplan has devoted some of his reporting to Jewish and Israeli causes, winning a national award from the Religion Communicators Council for his five-part series “Journey to Jerusalem.”
Kaplan, whose brother was a paratrooper in the Israeli military, has been even more vocal about his faith and support of Israel since the October 7 attacks – including calling “Gaza officials” Hamas – which has been a point of contention for some staffers.
On top of taking a pro-Israeli bent with much of his reporting on concerns over antisemitism and the Gaza conflict, Kaplan has sparked HR complaints for hanging a large Israeli flag from his cubicle in the Minnesota CBS office. A CBS News employee shared a photo of the flag with Zeteo, and several other sources noted they’d also seen the flag covering the cubicle wall.
Zeteo was also provided a photo of Kaplan wearing Israeli flag socks at a company event in December of last year, with the source noting that he made a point of showing them off at the time.
Meanwhile, a company employee told me that they had been spoken to by human resources several times for “making people uncomfortable with my political beliefs” because they had worn clothing that could be construed as pro-Palestinian, suggesting a double standard at the company.
Three sources familiar with the situation noted that complaints had been made about Kaplan related to the flag at his desk.
However, it was unclear whether HR had taken any action against him. “Jonah has had problems with everything under the sun,” one former CBS human resources employee told Ragebait.
Meanwhile, sources also noted that Kaplan has had regular communication with the CBS News chief in recent weeks. At the same time, that may not be that unusual considering that Minnesota has been a hotbed of news due to the fraud scandal, immigration crackdown, and ICE killings, with Kaplan being on the front line of that reporting.
Representatives for CBS News, Paramount, and Kaplan did not respond to requests for comment.
Kaplan is not the only pro-Israel staffer that Weiss, a self-avowed “Zionist fanatic,” has promoted since coming over to CBS News last year.
Earlier this year, she named Tony Dokoupil as the new anchor of ‘CBS Evening News.’ Dokoupil, whose children and ex-wife live in Israel, has not only been open about his pro-Israeli positions but also became a folk hero for Weiss and The Free Press in October 2024 after his contentious interview with celebrated author Ta-Nehisi Coates over Palestine. Weiss railed against CBS News management for reprimanding Dokoupil at the time, setting off a chain of events that ultimately led to her ascendence at the network.
Besides Dokoupil, Weiss also made former ABC News correspondent Matt Gutman – a one-time Jerusalem Post reporter – her first big hire at CBS News. On top of those names, Weiss made her close friend and former New York Times colleague Adam Rubenstein – the one-time executive editor of Jewish Insider who once compared the anti-Israel movement to the Westboro Baptist Church – one of her top deputies at the network. Weiss even gave a plum role to Free Press writer Sascha Seinfeld, the 25-year-old daughter of Jerry Seinfeld, the famed comic who said the “Free Palestine” movement is worse than the KKK. And this doesn’t even count Weiss’s Free Press colleagues, who were given lucrative contributor contracts.
“You just told us that ‘CBS Evening News’ is ‘We Love America.’ Sounds a lot like you want to hire people who love Israel, not America,” one senior CBS News staffer pointedly told me.
Fox Is Gonna Fox
It was like a game show. A very long, boring, dystopian, racist game show.
When he wasn’t going “full ethnic cleanser,” as Swin and Andrew wrote this morning, Donald Trump was bringing in surprise guests through the balcony doors, most notably the gold medal-winning USA men’s hockey team.
While viewers gave the speech the lowest marks of any SOTU this century in a CNN snap poll, Fox predictably did what Fox does – which is carry water for the president and declare that it was an unqualified success.
“I think this could have been the best speech he has ever delivered,” Fox star and informal Trump adviser Laura Ingraham exclaimed moments after it ended. “I feel like it was the president’s best speech,” ‘Fox & Friends’ host Lawrence Jones gushed.
Of course, it was left to Sean Hannity – Trump’s shadow chief of staff – to not only slather on the praise North Korea-style for his close pal, but to also rage at Democrats for not bowing down to the president. “How deranged you have to be to sit on your hands when the president is honoring innocent victims and their families? I said last year, the Democratic Party lost their heart, their conscience and their soul,” he grumbled.
Hannity’s Stolen Valor
While the USA hockey team sparked one of the few moments of bipartisan applause at the State of the Union, it appears that some of the members of the team were more than willing to be used as political pawns by Trump and his MAGA sycophants.
With the team already under fire for laughing at Trump’s derisive quip about the women’s hockey team and for giving Kash Patel his “Make A Wish” moment in their locker room, winger Matthew Tkachuk added another cringeworthy moment on Tuesday night during an interview with Hannity.
After telling the MAGA host “it was really cool” to be part of the SOTU, and that he was “chanting ‘USA’ myself” during the speech, Tkachuk took off his gold medal before turning to Hannity. “By the way, I think you should wear it for this,” the player said to a beaming Hannity.
In the end, this is yet another example that the “Shut Up and Dribble” and “Stick to Sports” folks are utterly full of it, as it’s only liberal athletes who need to keep their political opinions and beliefs to themselves.
Would You Look at That?
Fresh off his latest hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, which saw him offer $31 a share to gobble up the media giant, Paramount chief David Ellison was the invited guest of Trump lackey Lindsey Graham to Tuesday night’s State of the Union.
Honored to have David Ellison as my guest to @POTUS’ State of the Union address this evening. pic.twitter.com/wtvEqYiXHS
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) February 25, 2026
Nothing to see here, folks. Just the MAGA-friendly owner of CBS News, who wants to combine it with CNN, doing a Trumpian thumbs-up with one of the president’s loyal foot soldiers.
Bari Fails … Again
Nearly a month after he was outed as a longtime close associate of the late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, longevity guru Peter Attia announced this week that he was stepping down as a CBS News contributor. Notably, despite blowback both internally and externally, Weiss had refused to cut ties with Attia after his name appeared 1,700 times in the latest tranche of Epstein files, fearing that she would be bowing to “cancel culture” pressure.
With the network not including Attia’s name on its recent booking lists, even though it included the other contributors Weiss recently hired, it soon became clear that something had to give. Meanwhile, network sources I talked to pointed to this as yet another instance of the neophyte network boss “royally” screwing something up.
Saying that “any executive with half a brain would have immediately” parted ways with Attia, a senior CBS News staffer suggested that Weiss claimed she wasn’t “going to kowtow to the woke mob” because her wife was also in the Epstein files.
“And then she just did what Bari does, which is when she doesn’t want to deal with something, she just ignores it, doesn’t say anything, and thinks it’s going to go away,” the staffer added. “And all it does is metastasize and turn into this awful thing that then needs a bunch of chemotherapy.”
Justin Baragona is Zeteo’s media columnist. He is a former senior media reporter for The Daily Beast & a correspondent for
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