Bari Weiss’s Newest Hire Has a Long History of Anti-Muslim Remarks
The new senior global affairs correspondent at CBS, Trevor Phillips, is also a pal of ex-UK ambassador Peter Mandelson, who was fired over his ties to Epstein. Plus: on Iran, MAGA hacks vs MAGA hawks.
Hello, and welcome to this week’s early edition of ‘Ragebait.’
Justin Baragona here, bringing you the latest media dispatches from the right-wing industrial outrage complex and Bari World. In today’s edition, we dig into Bari Weiss’s latest big hire at CBS News – and the allegations of Islamophobia that have followed him throughout his UK broadcasting and political career. Also, is woke algae ruining Trump’s big, beautiful reflecting pool? And how are the MAGA hawks at Fox dealing with Trump’s supposed Iran peace deal?
Bari’s Latest Hire Is on Brand
“No, don’t try that one on me!” Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips dismissively sneered at UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski last month during an extremely contentious interview.
That contemptuous response came after Polanski, the only Jewish party leader in the UK, as well as the only leader who is outspoken against the genocide in Gaza, wondered why his “Jewish identity [was] being erased from this conversation” as Phillips continuously twisted the left-wing politician’s previous remarks about the threat of antisemitism in the UK.
Polanski noted that many Jews – such as himself – do not feel that pro-Palestinian rallies should be perceived as unsafe hate marches, while acknowledging that attacks on Jewish sites and people in Britain are on the rise. But Phillips chose to ignore and even belittle Polanski’s personal experiences and feelings on the matter. Even when the progressive leader brought up his own recent brushes with antisemitism.
Five weeks after Phillips “monstered” Polanski on air, as Zeteo’s own Owen Jones observed in a recent column in The Guardian, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss announced that the longtime British broadcaster and political figure had been hired as her network’s senior global affairs correspondent.
“Trevor Phillips cuts through the noise. His decades-long career is a masterclass in seeing beyond groupthink and pursuing the truth,” Weiss said in a statement about his hiring, noting that his reporting will appear on all of CBS News’s programming. “Trevor’s deep knowledge of geopolitics and history will be an incredible asset at CBS News, where he’ll quickly become an indispensable voice for audiences across all platforms.”
Following the five-alarm fire she set at the network in recent weeks with her “Black Thursday” firings at ‘60 Minutes,’ which has sparked growing murmurs that Weiss could be demoted ahead of the CNN-CBS News merger, one wonders why her next big move was to hire a 72-year-old opinion host unfamiliar to American viewers. (At the very least, it doesn’t seem like this will move the needle with younger audiences, which Weiss’s digital-first strategy was supposed to appeal to.)
“I guess I’d be looking at what correspondent work he had done before. He is a presenter. That’s different,” one former CBS foreign bureau staffer told me.
Of course, with Weiss – a former New York Times opinion columnist and founder of the anti-woke blog The Free Press – seeing herself as a heterodox thought leader, it doesn’t take much digging to see exactly why Phillips appeals to her.
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