Tony Dokoupil anchors "CBS Evening News" from Miami. (Screen grab via Snapstream/CBS)
On Tuesday evening, newly installed "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil closed out just his second official broadcast with a surreal segment: a glowing tribute to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Kicking off his “Live from America” tour with a broadcast from Miami, Dokoupil ran through Rubio’s ever-expanding portfolio as one of Donald Trump’s closest confidants. Then, in an attempt to create a lighthearted moment, the broadcast aired a montage of A.I.-generated memes depicting Rubio in a variety of imagined roles—including as the head of Hilton Hotels.
“Marco Rubio, we salute you,” Dokoupil declared. “You are the ultimate Florida man.”
Even under normal circumstances, an ostensibly objective newsman’s lighthearted praise of a cabinet member’s political portfolio would have been jarring. But it was particularly striking in context of the last several days. Rubio is currently helping Trump pursue the fantastical goal of capturing Greenland, and only days earlier participated in the shock overthrow of Venezuela’s government. That the "Evening News" would cap its broadcast with a meme-driven homage to a central player in those events was, to put it mildly, an extraordinary editorial decision.
And it wasn’t the only one.
Earlier in the program, the broadcast aired a segment embedded with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during an ICE raid. The piece featured a glammed up Noem, dressed in her usual tactical gear and jeans, lecturing a man who was being detained that he would be “held accountable for your crimes.” The framing of the footage resembled less an exercise in accountability journalism than a ride-along that appeared designed to flatter the administration.
Taken together, the MAGA-friendly editorial choices made by the freshly relaunched "Evening News" are almost certain to intensify scrutiny of the program—not just from critics outside the building, but from journalists inside it as well. In conversations Tuesday with more than a half-dozen staffers and network insiders, two themes emerged again and again…
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Dan Bongino. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Bongino Unleashed: Fresh off his stint as deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino declared war Tuesday on "black-piller, chicken-little grifters" in the MAGA space. Bongino didn't name names, but he described them as people who will "rarely take on the president directly," but will "try to pick off his allies, knowing many of them are limited in the ways they can fight back." Bongino, who clearly seems to believe he was victim of this dynamic while being derided at the FBI for his handling of the Epstein Files, said he is going to be "putting this bullshit to a stop" now that he is once again a private citizen. One of his first targets on Tuesday was…
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