CNN star Anderson Cooper has reportedly made his feelings clear about working with CBS News boss Bari Weiss ahead of a corporate merger that would put the two media outlets under the same ownership.
Paramount, which owns CBS, is poised to acquire CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, in a massive $111 billion consolidation.
According to The Independent, the merger would put David Ellison, the tech heir and Trump ally who controls Paramount, in charge of both the legacy broadcaster and the 24-hour cable network.
Ellison has not publicly revealed any specific editorial plans for CNN, but employees have reportedly raised concerns over what its leadership would look like under Weiss, whose tenure at CBS News has proven controversial.
The New York Times reports that CNN’s biggest star, Cooper, has told colleagues there that he does not want to work for Weiss after only just leaving CBS News, according to two of its sources.
The presenter overlapped with Weiss when he worked as a correspondent for the CBS flagship program 60 Minutes, but he left the show this spring after 20 years.
Weiss was appointed as CBS’s first-ever Editor-in-Chief in October 2025 following Paramount’s acquisition of its parent company.
Since Weiss took over the role, top producers have quit on ideological grounds, accusing Weiss of dragging CBS News’s editorial stance to the right.
Scott Pelley, a long-serving presenter on CBS News’s 60 Minutes who was abruptly fired last month after 37 years with the network, reportedly trashed Weiss in a meeting, saying she was “murdering” the program, according to reports.
