Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, April 27, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
Although Cole Allen posted his “manifesto” online shortly before he acted, should a credible news organization like CBS News give it the time of day?
In a “60 Minutes” interview with President Donald Trump, Norah O’Donnell didn’t hesitate even though the charges by a would-be assassin of a duly-elected U.S. President were vile, inflammatory and without substance. What’s worse many of the accusations had for years been relentlessly propagated without evidence by once reputable legacy media outlets like CBS.
There you have it: The U.S. legacy media, like the Democrat Party, are in direct violation of once sacrosanct standards of journalism and civil discourse. The conflict is so blatant, the average person can scarely process it.
In his substack column, Alexander Muse summed up the shocking and totally unacceptable state of affairs in the U.S. media-political complex:
“Begin with the manifesto. The 1,052 word document Allen sent to family members shortly before the attack identifies the President as ‘a pedophile, rapist, and traitor’ whose continued occupation of office Allen was ‘no longer willing to permit.’ Notice the structure. Each of those three labels is not a private grievance. Each is a recurrent, mainstream Democrat description of Donald Trump, repeated for years across CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the floor of the US House. Allen did not generate those words in isolation in a basement in Torrance. He absorbed them from Democrats and their willing accomplices in the drive-by media and then acted on them.”
Since anchor Norah O’Donnell sent CBS Evening News into the ratings basement, losing 25% of the audience share during her tenure, CBS has seen major changes with parent company Paramount’s $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media which put billionaire David Ellison — son of Oracle’s Larry Ellison — at the helm of the joint company.
“Well, I tell you what, Larry Ellison is great, and his son David is great. They’re friends of mine. They’re big supporters of mine. And they’ll do the right thing,” President Donald Trump told reporters last October when the deal went through.
“They’re gonna make CBS — hopefully they’ll, you know, they called it the Tiffany Network. And it’s got great potential. CBS has great potential.”
The network also named pro-Israel, anti-woke Bari Weiss as editor in chief.
Still, the network’s evening news broadcast continues to tank.
O’Donnell’s replacements, John Dickerson, Maurice DuBois, and now Tony Dokoupil have sunk the show’s ratings even further into last place, averaging less than 4 million total viewers, according to Nielsen ratings.
So, what’s the solution?
Bringing back Norah O’Donnell as anchor seemed to be a very real possibility.
That move could be in doubt as quickly after O’Donnell in a “60 Minutes” interview with the president on Sunday night read the unsubstantiated smears from would-be assassin Cole Allen’s manifesto:
“I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
Trump responded: “I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
O’Donnell interjected, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?”
Trump said: “I’m not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated.”
The president added: “You should be ashamed of yourself for reading that, because I’m not any of those things. You shouldn’t be reading that on ‘60 Minutes.’ You’re a disgrace.”
Trump also blasted O’Donnell on another point she raised about Allen, that the suspect went to a “No Kings” protest in California.
“If you’re going to one of those things, you’ve swallowed the whole false leftist narrative about Trump,” Red State’s Nick Arama noted.
Trump’s response to O’Donnell: “I’m not a king. What I am — if I was a king, I wouldn’t be dealing with you.”
Arama added: “The left spreads this nonsense, which has no relation to reality, but media like O’Donnell don’t call out the lie. We haven’t had a king since the Revolutionary War. Trump has to deal with a constantly hostile media, Congress, and activist courts, unlike a king or a dictator. It’s a silly narrative, but this is the kind of thing the left has been pushing for ten years, ginning up unhinged people.”
As she started her new role with CBS News, Weiss in October of last year sent a note to staffers on Friday seeking “to understand how you spend your working hours — and ideally, what you’ve made (or are making) that you are most proud of,” according to Variety.
Was CBS proud of O’Donnell’s performance? Since when is this responsible journalism? Who at CBS approved this? Bari Weiss?
Also last October, a CBS source told the New York Post: “I can’t believe Bari would be fooled by Norah O’Donnell. Norah has a track record of losing and Bari wants to win. Nothing says CBS News is stuck in the past more than putting Norah O’Donnell back on the ‘Evening News.’ ”
Trump asked reporters on Air Force One at the time: “So who’s going to be the head anchor at CBS? Not Norah O’Donnell. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”
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Once-reputable ’60 Minutes’ confronts president with would-be assassin’s unsubstantiated smears added by Editor Two on
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