George Clooney: ‘Bari Weiss Is Dismantling CBS News as We Speak’

When George Clooney was preparing to make his Broadway debut appearing as CBS news correspondent Edward R. Murrow in “Good Night, and Good Luck,” he invited “60 Minutes” to sit in on rehearsals. As the cast gathered for their first read through, Clooney talked about the story’s prescience — though it’s set during McCarthyism in the 1950s, he saw parallels with the political pressure that news organizations face in the second Trump administration.

“When the other three estates fail — when the judiciary and the executive and the legislative branches fail us — the fourth estate has to succeed,” Clooney said. With that he pointed his finger directly at “60 Minutes'” cameras, which are owned by the same network that employed Murrow.

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But Clooney feels that CBS has fallen short of its mission. In a new cover story with Variety tied to the release of his new movie, “Jay Kelly,” Clooney faults top law firms like Paul, Weiss, universities like Columbia, and news networks such as CBS and ABC for folding and settling when Trump and his lieutenants sued them.

“If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go, fuck yourself, we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney says. “That’s simply the truth.”  

In the case of CBS, the suspicion was that Shari Redstone opted to make Trump’s lawsuit with “60 Minutes” go away so he would approve Paramount’s sale to Skydance. The deal went through and Paramount got a new owner in August. Clooney is horrified by how David Ellison, Skydance’s founder and Paramount’s chairman, has moved to reshape its coverage by installing conservative commentator Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News.

“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Clooney says. “Am I worried about film studios? Sure. It’s my business, but my primary loyalty is to my country. I’m much more worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”

With Trump back in office, Clooney has continued to sound off on the threats that he poses to civil liberties and to America’s standing in the world.

“It’s a very trying time,” Clooney says. “It can depress you or make you very angry. But you have to find the most positive way through it. You have to put your head down and keep moving forward because quitting isn’t an option.”

At one point, before Trump descended that golden escalator and set the country on a MAGA course, Clooney and the reality TV star were friends.

“I knew him very well,” Clooney says. “He used to call me a lot, and he tried to help me get into a hospital once to see a back surgeon. I’d see him out at clubs and see him out at restaurants. He’s a big goofball. Well, he was. That all changed.”

Clooney thinks the Democrats will re-take the House in 2026 and he’s optimistic that the pendulum will swing back in the direction of liberalism after America has its full of Trump.

“Just straight up, it’s the economy stupid,” Clooney says. “It’s more expensive now than it was when Joe Biden left office. And powerful people tend to overplay their hands. I think that cruelty, like separating children from their parents, although popular with small groups of people, doesn’t play well with most Americans.”

He doesn’t share the anxiety of many Democrats that Trump will refuse to give up his White House perch and run for a third term.

“His popularity is very low and it’s not going to be shooting back up,” Clooney says. “We do have a constitution that we do abide by, and although I’ve been disappointed by many of the Supreme Court’s decisions, they are strict constitutionalists.”

Not only is Clooney worried about the direction of the country, he’s also concerned about the changes roiling the movie business. He doesn’t fear streaming services. He’s worked for them before and though “Jay Kelly” is a celebration of cinema, it’s being bankrolled by Netflix, a sign of how endangered movies for grownups have become as theatrical propositions. When we sat down in November, Netflix had yet to secure a deal to buy Warner Bros., but Clooney was already concerned about what the sale of the studio where he made many of his greatest movies would signal about the health of the industry.

“I liked having separate studios, and I liked them for what they were each good at, and that kind of specialization has gone away,” he laments. “I worry about things all getting rolled up into one giant company. That would be a very sad moment. Sometimes a big company buys all these little players, and they all lose their identity.”

But Clooney believes that the future of movies is less important than the direction of America and its leading news organizations.

“If you’re asking if I’m worried about the film studios, sure,” he says. “That’s my business. But my loyalty is to my country, and I’m much more worried about how we inform ourselves.”

Clooney is particularly concerned with the development of AI. He’s seen how much easier it has become to create fake videos that can distort and deceive.

“Now you can wash the watermark off of TikTok, and the only way you’re able to discern whether it’s AI generated or not is by the aspect ratio,” he says. “What’s going to happen when we get an AI generated video of Putin saying he’s launched the first strike? And do we have responsible enough people with their fingers on all the triggers to look at this and separate what’s real from what’s fake? We used to say, don’t believe everything you read, but we always believed what we saw. Now you can’t do that.”

AI is changing the movie business, as well. Shortly before Clooney sat down with Variety, news broke that Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated actress, had drawn interest from agencies hoping to represent her. Clooney doesn’t think he or his fellow A-listers will lose work to Tilly.

“As a day player, sure she might be successful, but are you going to build a whole narrative around her?” he says. “You can create an AI character, but is it gonna actually break you like Emma Stone? AI can combine all the characters that Emma Stone has played, but it can’t capture her magic. It’s like that Supreme Court Justice who said, ‘I can’t describe porn, but I know when I see it.’ It’s the same thing with movie stars. I can’t tell you why someone is one, but I can’t take my eye off of them when they’re on screen. It’s very rare when that exists.”