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Biden pardon, Patel FBI nomination fuel debate over politics and justice

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Biden pardon, Patel FBI nomination fuel debate over politics and justice

Democrats have warned for months that Donald Trump, if elected again, would bend the Justice Department to his own political will. But President Biden’s announcement Sunday that he had issued a sweeping pardon for his son Hunter — for any crimes he may have committed over a decade — suddenly left the president’s allies on the defensive.

Biden said he did it, after promising he wouldn’t, because he felt his own Justice Department had treated his son unfairly — that “raw politics” had “infected” Hunter Biden’s prosecution on gun and tax evasion offenses and “led to a miscarriage of justice.”

Trump, who during his first term pardoned a slate of political allies and who has long condemned the Justice Department as politicized and in need of an overhaul, blasted the decision, suggesting the pardon was an “abuse and miscarriage of Justice” itself.

The pardon immediately fed into an already roiling debate nationally around justice and politics and whether the two can adequately be held separate — particularly in the months ahead, as Trump takes office and stands up his next administration.

Outside political and legal experts said the episode is a stark reflection of the perilous moment that the American justice system faces as Trump takes office after escaping multiple criminal cases against him — and with both a long list of political enemies and a short list of law enforcement nominees who have vocally backed his plans to retaliate.

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Prior to the pardon, Democrats had been busy denouncing Trump’s nominees as threats to the intended firewall between politics and prosecutions. They had blasted his first attorney general nominee, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, and his second attorney general nominee, former Florida Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, as well as his nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, all as loyalists who would be willing to break legal boundaries on behalf of Trump.

After the pardon, some Democrats defended Biden’s decision, while others acknowledged that it was a bad look, if not a horrible decision.

Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., who served during the Obama administration, said no U.S. attorney would have charged Hunter Biden based on the facts of his case and the results of a years-long investigation into his actions — making the pardon “warranted.”

Holder said people should be focused on Trump and Patel instead.

“Ask yourself a vastly more important question. Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s preeminent law enforcement investigative organization?” he wrote on X. “Obvious answer: hell no.”

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Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, said on CNN that there is “legitimate concern” on the president’s part about Trump exacting retribution on his political enemies — including Biden’s own family. And he said Trump’s selection of Patel for FBI director was “a bad omen” of how Trump intends to use the Justice Department to attack his opponents.

But a pardon for Hunter Biden doesn’t do Democrats arguing against such retribution any favors, Ivey said.

“This sort of gives [Trump] ground to argue that, you know, both sides are doing the same thing,” he said. “This is going to be used against us when we are fighting the misuses that are coming from the Trump administration.”

Bernadette Meyler, a constitutional law professor at Stanford University who has written extensively about the use of pardons, called it “a disturbing moment for American justice,” in that the leaders of both major American political parties have now argued that the system is politically biased — so much so that they have had to utilize their executive power to essentially overrule it.

It “suggests that there is just widespread distrust in the system and how the law is being applied,” Meyler said, “and I think that’s quite worrisome.”

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Meyler said the most worrisome part of Biden’s pardon of his son was his explanation for it — which she said “seemed in keeping” with Trump’s own approach to pardons during his first term.

Trump used pardons then “for very political aims, in particular to criticize certain laws that he felt were not right or targeted certain kinds of malfeasance that he thought shouldn’t be criminalized, and also to do favors for those he felt were friends and political allies,” Meyler said. Trump “really highlighted” his use of the pardon power “as a way of criticizing the legal system,” she said.

Now, Biden has done much the same, she said.

Pardoning his son could have been viewed as a purely “pragmatic decision” — and “more defensible” — if Biden had merely cited Trump’s stated intentions to exact political revenge on his enemies, or if he had simply granted the pardon without commentary, Meyler said.

Instead, however, he issued an adjoining statement calling the entire Justice Department into question — which Meyler said played right into “Trump’s claims of a really biased system” and “echoes what Trump has been saying about politicized prosecutions.”

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Trump during his first term pardoned various members of his own campaign and administration, including for crimes associated with their work for him. They included advisor Stephen K. Bannon, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former national security advisor Michael Flynn. He also pardoned his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner.

In his second term, Trump has promised to pardon many if not all of the people charged in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — whom he called “hostages” in a post condemning Biden’s pardon on Sunday.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax charges in Los Angeles, and was convicted by a jury of illegally purchasing a handgun in Delaware. Republicans have long suggested he also acted corruptly in dealings with foreign corporations, peddling his family’s influence for cash.

Meyler said the president’s rationale for pardoning his son bolsters the argument Trump has been making for years that the various federal charges brought against him — for trying to steal the 2020 election, for hiding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago — were the result of a politicized Justice Department, while undermining the opposing argument by Democrats that those cases were the outcome of an unbiased prosecution by an independent counsel.

Biden’s statement “just makes it very hard to turn around and say there is no bias in these other cases,” she said, and even calls into question the very nature of special counsels — which Trump has long criticized.

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Mark Geragos, Hunter Biden’s attorney, raised similar concerns about special counsels in response to questions about the pardon. He said that after Trump’s classified documents case was tossed out in part over the appointment of a special counsel, Hunter Biden’s indictment should have been tossed as well.

He said Justice Department officials had passed on charging Hunter Biden before special counsel David Weiss decided otherwise — which he said “smacks of politics.”

Weiss in a court filing Monday argued against the dismissal of Hunter Biden’s case based on the pardon, saying he was not unfairly targeted.

Jessica A. Levinson, director of the Public Service Institute at Loyola Law School, said Biden’s pardon of his son may provide Trump with additional political cover to pardon his own allies moving forward, allowing him to say, “Look, everybody does it.” It also bolsters his argument that the Justice Department has been politicized and needs overhauling, she said, allowing him to say, “Even Joe Biden says there’s a problem.”

However, the effect of Biden’s pardon on Trump’s actions ahead should not be overstated, she said, as Trump had already made clear — including during his first term — that he would politicize the Justice Department and use the pardon power to protect his allies.

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“I just don’t feel like this now opens the floodgates for Trump to act in a way that he otherwise might not have,” Levinson said.

Levinson said Biden’s actions do muddy the political message of Democrats arguing that Trump is uniquely lawless, comparing it to the discovery of classified documents in the home or offices of both Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence after Trump was charged for having — and allegedly hiding — such documents at Mar-a-Lago.

The existence of documents in Biden and Pence’s possession allowed Trump to say, “See, everybody does it,” Levinson said, even though his underlying actions with the documents in his possession were distinctly different than Biden’s and Pence’s.

Biden’s pardon of his son similarly allows for headlines that put him and Trump on a level playing field in terms of their use of pardons, Levinson said — even if the underlying relevance of those pardons to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system are starkly different.

At such an intensely polarized time in the country politically, that likely means that Americans will come away with two very different versions of the truth based on which politicians or political party they trust, Levinson said.

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“It’s so hard because these moments force us to go below the headline and the first paragraph and to really dig in and figure out where there are similarities and where there are differences,” she said, “and it’s very hard to do when we live in a society that tends to be us-versus-them.”

Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, said the sweeping nature of Hunter Biden’s pardon is unique, too, in that it preemptively clears him of offenses he has not even been charged with. In that way, it could be challenged — if Trump wants to question the limits of the presidential pardon power.

In that sense, it could bring about positive change, she said — because the system of pardoning individuals has devolved in recent years into a muddled process, rather than the clear and orderly one it should be under the pardon attorney’s office.

“I hope at least this will provide an occasion for talking about how the president — how the pardon power — operates in our system of justice,” Love said. That conversation, she said, is overdue.

Times staff writer Stacy Perman contributed to this report.

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Paxton vows he’s ‘staying in this race’ even if Trump backs Cornyn in Texas GOP clash

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Paxton vows he’s ‘staying in this race’ even if Trump backs Cornyn in Texas GOP clash

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is making it clear: he’s staying in the race for the Republican Senate nomination even if President Donald Trump endorses Paxton’s rival, longtime Sen. John Cornyn.

“I’m staying in this race,” Paxton said in an interview Wednesday evening. “I owe it to the people of Texas.” 

Trump says he’ll soon take sides in the costly and combustible GOP primary showdown Cornyn and Paxton. 

“I will be making my Endorsement soon,” the president wrote in a social media post hours after Cornyn and Paxton advanced to a May 26 runoff election. 

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The two heated rivals topped a crowded field of contenders in Tuesday’s primary, but since no one cleared the 50% threshold, the nomination race heads into overtime.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, second from left, President Donald Trump, center, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), second from right, and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, right, take part in a briefing on energy at the Port of Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas, Feb, 27, 2026. (Mandel NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump added that he “will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”

A Republican operative in Trump’s political orbit told Fox News Digital it’s expected Cornyn will get the president’s endorsement. However, the president has been known to change his mind on candidates or even reverse endorsements. 

A second source in Trump’s political orbit told Fox News that while there’s still jockeying to influence the president’s decision, given Cornyn’s better-than-expected performance in the primary, Trump is expected to back the senator and prevent a messy and expensive runoff.

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CONTENTIOUS REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN TEXAS HEADED INTO OVERTIME

Asked if he would end his Senate bid if Trump backed Cornyn, Paxton, a MAGA firebrand and longtime Trump supporter and ally, said no in an interview with Real America’s Voice.

“I’ve spent a year of my life campaigning against John Cornyn because John has not represented the people of Texas well,” Paxton argued. “He’s been against Trump in both of his elections, said he shouldn’t run last time. … The people of Texas, at least the Republicans, would like something different.” 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks during a primary election night watch party March 3, 2026, in Dallas. (Julio Cortez/The Associated Press )

And a source in Paxton’s political orbit emphasized to Fox News Digital that the Texas attorney general isn’t getting out of the race.

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Cornyn or Paxton will face off in the general election against rising Democratic Party star state Rep. James Talarico, who topped progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a vocal Trump critic, in the Democrats’ primary. Talarico is trying to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in right-leaning Texas.

‘OPEN BORDERS, TRUMP-HATING RADICAL’—REPUBLICANS QUICKLY POUNCE ON TALARICO

The 2026 Senate showdown in Texas is one of a handful across the country that could determine if Republicans hold their majority in the chamber in the midterm elections. The GOP currently controls the chamber 53–47.

The Cornyn campaign and aligned super PACs spent nearly $100 million to run ads attacking Paxton and Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt — who came in third — with the senator charging in the closing weeks of the primary campaign that Democrats would flip the seat in the general election if Paxton was the GOP’s nominee.

Cornyn, his allies and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the campaign arm of the Senate GOP, repeatedly pointed to the slew of scandals and legal problems that have battered Paxton over the past decade, as well as his ongoing messy divorce.

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“Over the next 12 weeks, Texas Republican primary voters will hear more about my record of delivering conservative victories in the United States Senate, and learn more about Ken’s indefensible personal behavior and failures in office,” Cornyn told reporters on Tuesday night.

“Just like the primary, we have a plan to win the runoff, and we are in the process of executing it,” Cornyn said. “Judgment day is coming for Ken Paxton.” 

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign stop in The Woodlands, Texas, Feb. 28, 2026. (Annie Mulligan/AP Photo)

Paxton, a MAGA firebrand and longtime Trump supporter and ally who grabbed significant national attention by filing lawsuits against the Obama and Biden administrations, told supporters on primary night, “As we head into this runoff, we’re going to make the choice even clearer. While John Cornyn was cutting deals on gun control and amnesty, I was suing corrupt Joe Biden over 107 times.”

And he charged, “John Cornyn spent around $100 million trying to buy this seat. We’ve spent around $5 million.”

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ROUND TWO OF CORNYN VS. PAXTON GETS UNDER WAY

Trump on Wednesday urged, “for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. IT MUST STOP NOW!”

And pointing to Talarico, the president argued, “We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively.”

State Rep. James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks at a primary election watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

“Both John and Ken ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT!” Trump warned.

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Trump, whose clout over the GOP remains immense, stayed neutral in the Republican primary race. All three candidates, who sought the president’s endorsement, were in attendance Friday as Trump held an event in Corpus Christi, Texas.

“They’re in a little race together,” Trump said of Cornyn and Paxton. “You know that, right? A little bit of a race. It’s going to be an interesting one, right? They’re both great people, too.”

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the lobbying campaign to clinch the endorsement for Cornyn hasn’t stopped, and if anything, is intensifying in the hours since primary night.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters that Cornyn had “a great night” against Paxton. The top Senate Republican has spent the last several months bending Trump’s ear at every opportunity to jump into the race and back the longtime incumbent.

“He’s positioned to win the runoff, and if the president endorses early, it saves everybody a lot of money, and a lot of, you know, just 10 weeks of another spirited campaign on our side that keeps us from spending time focusing on the Democrats,” Thune said.

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Thune spoke with Cornyn on Wednesday morning, and believed that Talarico was the more formidable match-up for Republicans in November — one that Cornyn was better suited to win. 

“The matchup that’s good for us is John Cornyn at the top of the ticket,” Thune said.

NRSC communications director Joanna Rodriguez told Fox News Digital, “John Cornyn remains the only candidate who guarantees state Rep. Talarico never becomes a United States senator and ensures the fight for President Trump’s Senate majority is waged in true battleground states, not Texas.”

And the Thune-aligned Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the top super PAC backing Senate Republicans, which spent millions on behalf of Cornyn in the primary campaign, made it clear in a statement early Wednesday that it will continue to support the senator in the runoff.

“SLF and its sister organizations were proud to support Senator Cornyn early, and we look forward to him securing the Republican nomination on May 26,” the group’s executive director, Alex Latcham, said in a statement.

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Meanwhile, a GOP political operative in Trump’s orbit told Fox News Digital, “Talarico being the nominee makes President Trump’s endorsement of Cornyn more important than ever.”

While Trump stayed neutral, his top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, helped the Cornyn campaign. And veteran Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, who served as co-campaign manager of Trump’s 2024 White House bid, consulted for a top Cornyn-aligned super PAC. 

LaCivita, in a social media post Tuesday night aimed at Paxton and his top political consultant, wrote, “The second wave is going to be a (bi–h.)”

But on the Paxton side of the playing field, operatives and donors are confident they can unseat the senator.

Dan Eberhart, an oil drilling chief executive officer and prominent Republican donor and bundler who supports Paxton, told Fox News Digital, “This was Cornyn’s shot to fend off his challenger by getting over 50%, and he couldn’t do it. The runoff voters will be even less friendly territory for Cornyn.”

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Pointing to former longtime Senate GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has often acted as a Trump foil, Eberhart said, “This race is about MAGA vs. McConnell.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks to supporters at a campaign event on primary eve, in Waco, Texas on March 2, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

Meanwhile, Lone Star Liberty, a pro-Paxton super PAC, circulated a memo ahead of Tuesday’s election that shrugged off threats that Cornyn would succeed in the runoff by continuing to hammer the attorney general over his litany of scandals, arguing there was nothing new to offer.

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“Cornyn’s talk of ‘unleashing’ new attacks in the runoff is bluster,” the memo states. “The truth is that from day one, his forces fired every bullet they had. There are no new attacks left — only more of the same, at ever-greater cost and with ever-diminishing returns.”

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Fox News’ Rich Edson contributed to this report

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Trump teases kingmaker endorsement in Texas ‘soon’ to force other candidate out of runoff
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Fears mount at CBS News and CNN over merger, consolidation

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Fears mount at CBS News and CNN over merger, consolidation

Paramount’s $111-billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery will put two of the most storied journalism brands — CNN and CBS News — under one roof.

The combination has been proposed before with the aim of consolidating news-gathering costs. Those plans fell apart largely over who would be in control.

But if the Paramount-WBD transaction is approved by regulators, CNN and CBS News will be forced into potentially rocky marriage where they will have to sort out leadership roles, personnel and editorial direction.

It’s still too early to determine what those moves will be and how widely they will be felt.

Last week CNN Chief Executive Mark Thompson told his troops to avoid “jumping to conclusions about the future.”

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But what is certain is that every permutation will be scrutinized closely due to the fraught relationships both CNN and CBS News have with the Trump administration.

“There have been many conversations over the years about combining CBS News and CNN,” said Jon Klein, a digital media entrepreneur who previously held leadership roles at both organizations. “But this time, it’s different. The business case always made sense — but today you’ve got the overlay of the political agenda.”

Before Paramount prevailed in its bid for CNN’s parent, Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison’s father Larry Ellison reportedly discussed changes to the network with Trump. For years, Trump has made CNN the poster child of his “fake news” claims and impugned many of its journalists.

“What has David Ellison and Larry Ellison promised Donald Trump with regard to what they’re going to do with CNN?” said one former executive. “Before you even get through the hurdles of doing this, that’s the overriding question. Are they going to fire anchors Trump doesn’t like?”

There is also apprehension at CBS News, where David Ellison installed Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief in October, with a mandate to have network’s coverage appeal to the political center.

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CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss with Turning Point USA’s Erika Kirk at a town hall that aired Dec. 20.

(CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images)

Weiss — founder of the independent media company The Free Press — came into the role with no experience running a TV news organization, building her reputation as an opinion writer with contrarian views and a disdain for woke ideology.

The former New York Times opinion writer, who is staunchly pro-Israel, drew criticism over the weekend for putting a fire emoji over a comment criticizing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s condemnation of the U.S. military action in Iran — an unusual public reaction for the head of a major news organization.

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Weiss wasted no time taking on the prestigious CBS news magazine “60 Minutes,” which has long been a stubbornly independent operation. She delayed a story on the harsh El Salvador prison used by the U.S. to house undocumented migrants saying it needed more reporting. The story’s correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi accused CBS News management of placating the White House, turning the decision into a public relations fiasco for the network.

Significant changes are coming to “60 Minutes” later this spring, with one or more of its correspondents possibly being replaced, according to people familiar with Weiss’ plans who were not authorized to comment. Weiss has also expressed interest in hiring right-leaning on-air talent for CBS News.

Some CBS News leadership is already heading for the exit. Shana Thomas, longtime “CBS Mornings” executive producer, told staff Thursday she is leaving at the end of the month. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and frankly, I’m tired y’all,” she wrote in a memo.

Weiss arrived after Paramount settled a Trump lawsuit with the dubious claim that a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris was deceptively edited to aid her 2024 presidential election campaign against him.

The willingness to settle the suit was largely seen as Paramount capitulating to Trump in order to get government approval of its merger with Skydance Media. The Ellisons’ tight relationship with Trump was also seen as an asset in their successful pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery.

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The stew of issues bubbling through the transactions is why most of the rank and file at CNN rooted for Netflix to prevail in its bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery. The Netflix bid for WBD did not include CNN or the company’s cable networks, which in the words of one insider would have made it “a stay of execution.”

Now CNN staffers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, are bracing for upheaval. When they look at CBS News navigating the changes under Weiss, they are reminded what they went through after Warner Bros. Discovery took over their network and tried to push the coverage to the center.

After a declaration by WBD Chief Executive David Zaslav that the network needed to be more accommodating to conservative voices — and the telecast of a rowdy Trump town hall — CNN experienced an exodus of viewers.

But the biggest fear that the merger brings is consolidation and the loss of jobs. CNN has 3,400 employees while CBS News is at around 1,000. Cost-cutting is expected to be aggressive across the combined Paramount-WBD, which will have a mountain of debt to service.

The parent companies of CBS and CNN have discussed merging or sharing news-gathering operations and on-air talent numerous times over several decades. In 2019, Viacom, the CBS News parent at the time, had a deal in place to pay CNN an annual license fee to provide international coverage.

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Under that plan, CBS would have maintained a few of its signature overseas correspondents, while shuttering its bureaus around the world. But Viacom backed out of the deal.

CNN’s international coverage has long been its calling card and its likely the network will handle that reporting for CBS News once Paramount takes ownership.

Combining the news-gathering operation stateside will be trickier, as CBS News has employees and vendors that operate under contracts with the Writers Guild of America East, SAG-AFTRA and other unions. CNN is a non-union shop.

Resolving the union issue has been a snag in every previous discussion to combine CBS News and CNN over the years, according to several former executives at both outlets.

A portrait of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper in New York in 2016.

(Associated Press)

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Another development worth watching is what role Anderson Cooper will play in the merged operation. Cooper signed a new deal with CNN last year, but turned down an offer to remain as a “60 Minutes” correspondent, a role he’s had since 2007.

CBS News has pursued Cooper several times over the years to be its evening news anchor. There was even a proposal in 2018 for him to helm “CBS Evening News” while keeping his nightly prime time program on CNN. That idea was shot down at CNN, where leadership believed he was unique to the network’s brand.

In a statement, Cooper cited a desire to spend more time with his two children as the reason for passing on another “60 Minutes” deal. However, associates have said his wariness over the direction of CBS News under Weiss made his decision easier.

Now Cooper is likely headed into the CNN-CBS News tent, which may make him feel a bit like Michael Corleone in “Godfather III” when he said “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”

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Video: Senate Republicans Block Limits to Trump’s War Powers

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Video: Senate Republicans Block Limits to Trump’s War Powers

new video loaded: Senate Republicans Block Limits to Trump’s War Powers

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Senate Republicans Block Limits to Trump’s War Powers

Senate Republicans voted against a Democratic bill that would have required President Trump to obtain congressional authorization to continue waging war against Iran.

“The yeas are 47. The nays are 53. The motion to discharge is not approved.” “President Trump decided to attack Iran. That decision was profound, deliberate and correct. The president understands the weight of war.” “Why is Donald Trump hellbent on making history repeat itself? Why is he plunging America headfirst into a war that Americans do not want, and which he cannot even explain? The American people deserve a say, and that is what our resolution is about.”

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Senate Republicans voted against a Democratic bill that would have required President Trump to obtain congressional authorization to continue waging war against Iran.

By Shawn Paik

March 5, 2026

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