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.
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 Independent has contacted a spokesperson for Cooper.
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.
In an interview with The New York Times podcast The Interview, Pelley likened leaving the program to “like your spouse being murdered.”
“There’s some moments of the day I feel fine. There’s some moments of the day that I just, frankly, fall apart, when I least expect it,” he said.
Other correspondents who were fired have accused Weiss of editorial interference, which she has denied.
Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery will put Ellison’s company in control of CNN and HBO, among other entities.
Ellison’s relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump has raised alarms at CNN, according to interviews with network correspondents and employees.
In April, Ellison hosted a dinner in Washington in the president’s honor around the time that the Trump administration was deciding whether to object to Ellison’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
He was also in attendance at Trump’s UFC spectacle at the White House earlier this month, on the day of the president’s 80th birthday.
Last year, Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle the president’s lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The funds did not go directly to the president, but were earmarked for his legal fees and his future presidential library.
The controversial settlement was labeled as an act of “bribery” by certain politicians, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).
Ellison recently insisted in an interview with CNBC that CNN’s “editorial independence will absolutely be maintained” and has said he wants his news networks to appeal to the middle “70 percent” of Americans.
“CNN is an incredible brand with an incredible team, and we absolutely believe in the independence that needs to be maintained for those incredible journalists, and we want to support that going forward,” Ellison said. “Editorial, independence will absolutely be maintained. It is maintained at CBS, it will be maintained at CNN.”
