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alan dershowitz
Bari Weiss: Bounds of ‘Acceptable Debate’ at CBS News Will Range From Alan Dershowitz to Dana Loesch
"After years of complaining that there wasn't enough viewpoint diversity in acceptable media discourse, Bari Weiss now appears to suggest that there's too much," said one critic.
Nov 25, 2025
Since Paramount's new Trump-aligned billionaire owner, David Ellison, installed the right-wing pundit Bari Weiss as the editor-in-chief of CBS News, fear has abounded about how she might attempt to reshape the network to fit her worldview.
Weiss once fashioned herself as a champion of "ideological diversity," in contrast to what she deemed a takeover of academia and media by intolerant "woke" types who'd fostered an "illiberal" atmosphere of political conformity.
But now that she's at the helm of one of America's most storied news organizations, she seems to view her role much differently.
During a panel at the Jewish Leadership Conference, a gathering of conservative and pro-Israel Jewish figures, this week Weiss laid out her goals for how she plans to use her powerful position.
"I think it's about who's in the room," Weiss said. "I think it's about redrawing the lines of what falls in the 40-yard lines of acceptable debate and acceptable American politics and culture."
She said her goal for the network is to create a new form of "centrist" news, not by adopting a dispassionate "voice from nowhere," but by amplifying people who are "clearly and identifiably on the center-left and the center-right in conversation with one another."
"This is an opportunity to speak for the 75%, for the people that are on the center-left and the center-right," Weiss said.
Weiss gave an example of two figures she thought would represent this paradigm: "I was in... Chicago last week... where Dana Loesch, former spokeswoman for the [National Rifle Association], was debating Alan Dershowitz on guns. Now, these are people who have wildly different opinions on the Second Amendment, and yet showing they can have good faith, very passionate, very charismatic disagreement, and still like each other at the end of the day is very important."
Weiss contrasted these preferred figures with those "rising in the podcast charts," whom she said "don't represent the values and the worldview of the vast majority of Americans." These included pundits on the extreme right like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, who have expressed overt Nazi sympathies, as well as former Fox News host-turned independent podcaster Tucker Carlson, who has given each of these men friendly interviews.
But she also mentioned Hasan Piker, a popular left-wing Twitch streamer who has faced accusations of antisemitism, including from members of Congress, for his denunciation of Israel's "genocide" in Gaza, which has resulted in the death or injury of more than 10% people living in the strip over the past two years. Piker has called antisemitism "completely unacceptable," adding that he finds "the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism to be very dangerous."
what makes this funnier is that her outlet cbs news is currently trying to set up a debate with me ?! https://t.co/FuGjZnK0CH
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) November 25, 2025
One critic on social media wrote that "after years of complaining that there wasn't enough viewpoint diversity in acceptable media discourse, Bari Weiss now appears to suggest that there's too much."
While Weiss said she does not mean for her narrowing of the discourse to be done in a "censorious, gatekeeping way," Weiss has long been criticized for her attempts to silence critics of Israel.
As David Klion wrote in the Guardian in September, Weiss' publication, the Free Press, which Ellison purchased in September for an eye-popping $150 million, has championed the second Trump administration's efforts to force institutions of higher learning to crack down on anti-Israel speech on college campuses, which it has portrayed as part of a crusade against "antisemitism."
"The pattern is clear: If you work at a liberal institution and you want the Trump-controlled federal government to step in and discipline it, Bari Weiss is there to help," Klion wrote.
Prior to Weiss' ascendance, CBS News and other major networks had already faced scrutiny for their near-total lack of Palestinian perspectives in their coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. In December 2024, Adam Johnson reported in the Nation that across the major Sunday shows on NBC, ABC, CNN, and CBS, there had been 2,557 mentions of Gaza since October 7, 2023, but only one Palestinian guest had appeared across all four of them, while Israeli guests had been featured 20 times.
Staffers at CBS have raised concerns about Weiss having an even more aggressive "hall monitor" approach to policing coverage in her new position. Critics say that her singling out of Dershowitz and Loesch as representatives for the bounds of acceptable opinion suggests that she will pursue rigid ideological conformity at the network.
"Everyone Bari Weiss thinks is too extreme to be included always has one thing in common: opposition to Israel," noted independent journalist Glenn Greenwald.
"Hey, I know what the kids want more of right now: Alan Dershowitz!"
— John Ganz (@lionel_trolling) November 25, 2025
As other critics noted, Dershowitz and Loesch are not figures that many would associate with the "center-left" and the "center-right" as Weiss claims.
While the clear majority of Democratic voters now believe Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, Dershowitz—who left the party to become an independent last year—has referred to such accusations as antisemitic "blood libel," and denounced protesters against Israel's military campaign as the equivalent of "Hitler Youth."
The lawyer has also defended many of the most egregious actions by Israel, including its attacks on hospitals, which have killed over 1,400 people according to UN figures from August: "Sometimes attacking a hospital saves lives," was the title of one video he published on November 16, 2023.
"If you’re going to redraw the lines to square up more with what 75% of Americans believe, how are you going to cover aid to Israel, which is wildly unpopular among that 75%?" one social media user wrote in response to Weiss, referencing recent polls showing that the vast majority of Americans now disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza.
Loesch, meanwhile, is far from a moderate or a cordial participant in polite disagreement. She is widely credited with helping to morph the NRA from purely a gun advocacy group into a vehicle for a broader right-wing culture war.
She has personally described gun safety advocates as “tragedy dry-humping whores,” and the political left as "godless." Meanwhile, she's appeared to threaten journalists explicitly, saying they "need to be curb-stomped," after previously calling them "the rat bastards of the Earth" and "the boil on the backside of American politics."
The example Bari Weiss gave of the "charismatic" mainstream debates she believes will revitalize CBS -- namely, the gun control debate she arranged between Alan Dershowitz and Dana Loesch -- has so far been watched by a grand total of 860 people in the 5 hours since posting: https://t.co/hZp1bBbfe9 pic.twitter.com/osN4CwD9nY
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 25, 2025
Rather than reflecting the consensus of American opinion, Greenwald noted, the "charismatic" conversation between Dershowitz and Loesch on gun control had garnered a grand total of 860 views on YouTube within five hours of being posted.
"I’ve been writing about elite vs. popular politics for a long time," said Zachary D. Carter, a senior reporter at HuffPost. "[I] don’t think I’ve ever seen elite consensus more disconnected from public reality."
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Sen. Joni Ernst Admits GOP Using Impeachment Trial to Damage Biden in 2020
"Trump is trying to use the trial to do what Ukraine wouldn't—destroy his political rivals."
Jan 27, 2020
After President Donald Trump's legal team on Monday completed the second day of their impeachment defense--which largely consisted of attacks on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter--Republican Sen. Joni Ernst told reporters that she is "really interested to see" how team Trump's performance at the Senate trial "informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucus-goers."
Ernst's remarks, which came just a week before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses, were widely viewed as an open admission that Trump's attorneys and the Republican Party are using the Senate impeachment trial as an opportunity to damage Biden at the polls.
"This is saying the quiet part out loud," tweeted MSNBC correspondent Garrett Haake, a sentiment that was echoed by others.
"Here is Joni Ernst screaming the quiet part into a bullhorn," said Kaili Joy Gray, executive editor of The American Independent, in response to the Iowa Republican's comments.
\u201cERNST: "IA caucuses are this next Monday evening. And I'm really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Demcaucus goers. Will they be supporting VP Biden at this point?"\n\nH/T @JaxAlemany\u201d— Alan He (@Alan He) 1580170088
Ernst's comments run counter to the longstanding White House and Republican narrative that Trump's effort to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations--for which he was impeached by the House of Representatives last month--was a genuine attempt to root out corruption, not a politically motivated ploy to harm Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Like Ernst, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) also invoked the presidential election following hours of arguments by Trump's defense team, which includes Pam Bondi, Eric Herschmann, Alan Dershowitz, and Ken Starr.
"I was watching Elizabeth [Warren] and Bernie [Sanders] and Michael [Bennet] and Amy [Klobuchar] and they were really eyes wide open during that part of it," Barrasso told reporters, referring to Trump attorney Pam Bondi's presentation, which heavily focused on Biden an his son.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said as he watched "Bondi and the other Trump lawyers spend most of the day savaging the Bidens (as expected)... it become crystal clear to me: Trump is trying to use the trial to do what Ukraine wouldn't--destroy his political rivals."
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Trump Team Titans
"Birds of a feather will gather together."
Jan 25, 2020
Birds of a feather will gather together.
-- Robert Burton, The Author's Abstract
A man is known by the company he keeps. The make-up of Team Trump is known, and as this is written, the trial is under way and by the time it sees the light of day, may already be over. Nonetheless, is not too late to admire one of the almost members of the Trump defense team, two of the well-known members and draw attention to one member who has been sadly overlooked. It is not that she has not had as illustrious a career as her colleagues. It is just that it is slightly less newsworthy.
The almost member of the defense team is, of course, Rudy Giuliani. He has gone around the world at great personal sacrifice in order to advance the Trump interests by getting dirt on the Bidens, and getting rid of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine.
In all those efforts he has been single minded, always bearing the interests of the Trump foremost in his mind. Nonetheless, on a personal level, Rudy wanted nothing more than to have his name and face forever implanted on the impeachment proceedings by being a highly visible part of the defense team. Although he had, in the past, made history by being the only New York mayor to announce at a press conference, that he was divorcing his wife, an announcement that was as much news to her as to the rest of the world, that feat would not have held a candle, when his obituary is written, to having been a part of the team that was defending a man who was not only the most corrupt but also the dumbest president to have ever lived in the White House. Rudy really wanted to ride into posterity on the back of the Trump. It was not to be.
Among others, the defense team includes Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr. Alan is an excellent choice since he was one of the lawyers who enabled the billionaire pedophile and good friend, Jeffrey Epstein, to avoid prison time for his now famous sexual escapades. Epstein had faced multiple counts of soliciting and trafficking underage girls in Florida, but thanks to the able defense of Alan and others, he was sentenced to 13 months of house arrest. Alan was assisted in that highly successful effort by another member of the Trump team, Ken Starr. Following his participation in the Epstein case, Ken went on to still more illustrious achievements. In 2011 he was named president of Baylor University and in 2016 he was kicked out for failing to respond appropriately to reports that football players at Baptist Baylor University had been convicted of sexual assaults.
Being among such successful defenders and enablers of men accused of sexual criminal activities, it is no surprise that she would go unnoticed. It's not fair. She is just as exemplary as they--I refer to Pam Bondi.
Pam was the former attorney general for the state of Florida. When she was running for reelection to that post in 2013, she accepted a $25,000 check for her campaign from the Donald J. Trump Charitable Foundation. (On December 19, 2019 a suit against the foundation for using its money for, among other things, political purposes to further the Trump's presidential pursuit, was settled.)
Following receipt of the gift from the foundation, Pam made the carefully considered decision not to sue Trump University on behalf of Florida citizens who claimed the university had swindled them.
Among her many notable Trump-like activities, Pam was active in taking steps to make it more difficult for voting rights to be restored to Florida ex-felons, repeatedly appealed federal court rulings against same-sex marriage bans until the U.S. Supreme Court definitively invalidated such prohibitions, and joined a lawsuit opposing the clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay, a bay that is several hundred miles from Tallahassee.
Another notable act occurred when she was running for reelection as attorney general for the state of Florida. Marshall Lee Gore had been sentenced to death in Florida following his conviction for a vicious murder and rape. His execution was twice postponed but finally scheduled for September 10, 2014. It turned out that was the date that Pam, who was running for re-election, had scheduled her "hometown campaign kickoff" at her South Tampa home. Understandably, she did not want an execution to take away from the excitement of her day. Accordingly, she asked the governor's office to postpone the execution. Her request was granted. Mr. Scott was put to death October 1, 2014. Ms. Bondi's fundraiser went off without a hitch. She was reelected to a second term as attorney general of Florida the following month.
Pam is a great addition to the Trump defense team. She will have no trouble fitting in. Trump, if no one else, should be grateful for her participation.
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