The Hound | Oct. 21

Weiss pushing CBS crusade against Democratic candidates, Trump admin. could nullify California internet protections, and more.

October 21, 2026

Hi there,

It’s Wednesday. Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, personally pushed her newsroom to pursue baseless smears against two Democratic Senate candidates in high-stakes midterm races. She advocated for a deeper dive into Abdul El-Sayed’s supposed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — an organization El-Sayed has repeatedly and publicly denounced — and faced internal pushback for insisting that CBS link the first potential Muslim senator’s name to 9/11 “on very thin grounds.” The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis called it plainly: “It reads like a dog whistle.”

This is not editorial judgment. It is a news executive using a major broadcast network as a political weapon against specific candidates two weeks before an election. It follows a documented pattern: Weiss killed a 60 Minutes segment about El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison, was “very, very hands-on” with a story on Israeli settler violence. The public deserves reporting that holds news executives to the same standard it applies to political operatives — because when they behave like operatives, they should be treated as such

In addition, California’s internet regulations may be unenforceable for more than a decade if Gov. Gavin Newsom accepts $1.42 billion in federal broadband deployment grants. And, the Army wants to sic AI agents on its adversaries.

Read about these, and more, in today’s stories:

Until next time,

Harry from The Hound

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