Politics
How Katie Porter harnesses her blunt style and single-mom experience in her Senate campaign
One busy morning last summer, Rep. Katie Porter timed her flight back to Washington with one to Oregon so her three kids could visit their father, whom they had not seen in months.
As she shepherded her children through the metal detector at Santa Ana’s John Wayne Airport — peeling off jackets and separating iPads — a woman in line at the checkpoint asked to take a photo together. Porter politely declined.
After surviving the airport gauntlet, Porter was buying her kids snacks for the flight when the same woman found her and asked again.
“I’m sick of people trying to take their photo with me,” an exhausted Porter recounted later while speed-walking through the halls of the U.S. Capitol’s Cannon Building — late for a committee hearing.
The fan had caught Porter at the confluence of her dueling lives — as a single mother to three and a social media superstar Senate candidate.
Porter, who is running for the U.S. Senate, hosts a consumer protection roundtable session via videoconference from her district office in Irvine.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Porter’s three terms as an outspoken Democratic member of Congress holding down a competitive Orange County district have been defined by her blunt demeanor, professorial intellect and sometimes polarizing behavior. Those traits tend to stir things up inside both the U.S. Capitol and her four-bedroom home in Irvine, which she shares with a college student who helps take care of the children while Porter is away. Her decision to run for the U.S. Senate has put all of it on full display.
Porter’s three kids sit in the foreground of her campaign against fellow Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee of Oakland and Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, as well as Republican and former Dodger Steve Garvey, in California’s 2024 Senate race. Her fundraising appeals and stump speeches are peppered with recipes for the frozen dinners she makes them and mentions of her 2010 Toyota Sienna minivan and their family vacations to national parks.
“What I’ve never been able to pull apart is how much of what’s hard about my life is because I’m in Congress, and in competitive races, and how much of my life is hard because I’m a single parent,” Porter, 50, told The Times. “Those things are absolutely wedded together in a way that I can’t always tell which it is.”
Porter’s children, from left, Betsy, Luke and Paul, at their Irvine home in July.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Before each of her congressional campaigns, Porter’s family sat down and talked through the merits of running. This Senate race was no different. She appreciates their ambivalence — a mix of pride for their mom but also a teenage desire to avoid the spotlight.
Her son Paul, 15, preferred a Senate run because those happen once every six years, while House members run for reelection every two years.
“The actual campaign is the worst part of the job,” he said before offering his thoughts on the film “Barbie.”
Betsy, 12, had a slightly different view — and it was unclear whether she was joking.
“I really hope she loses so we can get a cat.”
Luke, 18, had zero interest in sharing his thoughts with a reporter.
::
The Senate candidate likes to say that she does “Congress differently,” which tends to elicit eye rolls from colleagues who see that as bluster. Since taking office, Porter has helped pass legislation aimed at lowering drug prices and has used her committee assignments to loudly skewer Trump administration appointees and corporate executives.
The three leading Democratic candidates to succeed the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Reps. Katie Porter, Adam B. Schiff and Barbara Lee, from left, debate in L.A. in October.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
When Democrats retained control of Congress in the 2020 election, that combativeness didn’t stop.
She’s blasted members of Congress, Democrats included, for funding pet projects in their districts through earmarks. She’s accused those with lucrative stock portfolios of being in the pocket of Wall Street. She lambasted her party’s leaders for how they made high-profile committee appointments, and in doing so crossed powerful members like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco — who has endorsed Schiff in the Senate race.
Pelosi said that she respects all Democrats serving in Congress, that all of their votes are pivotal, and that members who feel they’ve clashed with her “flatter themselves to think I was butting heads with them.”
“I didn’t agree with the characterization that congresswoman Porter presented about Congress not doing this and that and the other thing,” Pelosi said in a recent interview on L.A.’s Fox11 News. “I was disappointed in how she’s diminished what Congress has done rather than taking pride for any role that she may have had in it.”
Porter has alienated many members of California’s 52-person congressional delegation. Just one has endorsed her.
“What can I say on the record that does not insult my colleague Katie Porter? I think what I can do is talk about Adam Schiff’s strengths, which includes his collaborative approach to the work he does,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) told The Times last year.
The license plate of Porter’s Toyota Sienna minivan references her position on the House Oversight Committee.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
In her book, “I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan,” Porter lashed out at former Orange County Rep. Harley Rouda, calling him “Representative Rich Guy” while recounting an instance when he asked her to get his car from the valet after a local fundraiser.
In a recent Orange County Register opinion piece, Rouda fired back, saying that he never asked Porter to get his car and that she was “no better than a bully. A bully with a white board who is in this for power and her ego.”
Rouda, a fellow Democrat who hasn’t endorsed anyone in the Senate race, also criticized Porter for living in a home that she purchased at below market value with help from UC Irvine as an example of how she has “had more choices and more privilege than virtually everyone else.”
She lives in a development for university faculty and staff. The homes are sold at below-market prices determined by the Irvine Campus Housing Authority, a nonprofit that was set up in the 1980s by the regents of the University of California.
And since she went on leave as a law professor at the school to enter Congress, she’s been able to stay in the home. Porter has said she followed all of the university’s procedures. A UC Irvine spokesman told The Times in 2022 that Porter’s case was unique because the school had never had a faculty member elected to Congress.
Porter’s demeanor may be grating to some colleagues, but it resonates with a wide swath of Californians — many of whom feel disillusioned by government and politics. During her 2022 reelection campaign, Porter raised more than $25.6 million in contributions — the second-most in Congress, behind only Bakersfield’s Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was then the House Republican leader. Pelosi and Schiff followed closely behind her.
She said her lack of chumminess with colleagues is the price of doing business her way, and stems in part from how little time she has after toggling between her kids and her job.
“I’m more willing to call out the nonsense and the bull—,” she told The Times in one of several interviews in recent months.
Porter still shops for groceries for her Irvine household.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
The Irvine mom’s 2018 election represented a seismic shift in how female candidates presented their kids on the campaign trail, said Fresno State University political science department Chair Lisa Bryant, who has researched how being a mother influences congressional members’ votes.
For female politicians of earlier generations, she said, motherhood was often a liability.
Women more typically ran for office after their kids were out of the house, and only in the last decade has being a mother of school-age children been seen as a political asset.
Bryant cited the late Democratic Rep. Pat Schroeder of Colorado, who was first elected in 1972, and during her campaigns “had an infant and a toddler, which was really weaponized against her. People who ran against her criticized her ability to govern.”
“Porter is trying to show her voters and constituents: I’m like you and I understand what you’re going through,” Bryant told The Times.
The late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whom Porter wants to succeed, appeared keenly aware in a 2014 interview of the cost her job did have when it came to raising her daughter, Katherine.
Porter, attending one of her daughter’s water polo events with campaign manager Lacey Morrison, left, pauses to talk with Heather Murphy of Placentia.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
“I think the key is: Can your spouse take it? Can your children handle it? Do you feel that you are giving enough with what you can give? Because you cannot, I think, give everything and work 12-14 hours a day, virtually every day. You just can’t do it,” the senator told NBC.
It’s even tougher for Porter, who is divorced and lacks the wealth Feinstein and many other members of Congress have had.
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Porter’s story begins in small-town Iowa, where she was raised by a father who was a farmer turned loan officer and a homemaker mother who later found fame in the world of quilting.
Porter came of age during the farming crisis of the 1980s; neighbors and friends lost their homes and livelihoods as the price of farmland plummeted. The experience shaped her skepticism of the banking industry, which she says often cares too little about customers and the health of the American economy.
While growing up, Porter watched her mom transform a hobby into a massively successful business. What started as teaching quilting in the late 1970s led to books, mail-order classes and a nationally syndicated television show, all based out of a storefront in Winterset, Iowa. By 2004, the business she ran with a partner had annual sales of more than$1 million, according to an article in the Des Moines Register.
“I remember as a kid people stopping us and saying: ‘Is that you, Liz Porter?!’ And I remember as a kid being like, ‘Oh, my God — let’s just go.’ And that same thing happens now to my kids when people are like, ‘Is it you, Congresswoman Porter?’” she said.
A bright student, Porter attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., then Yale University and Harvard Law School, where she met a bankruptcy professor who would become her mentor: Elizabeth Warren, the now-senior senator from Massachusetts — a fellow Democrat who has endorsed Porter’s Senate campaign.
“She spends her minutes in D.C., fighting for the people who get no voice here. That’s what she sees as her job, and if she’s here, that’s the work she’s doing — not schmoozing with a bunch of people,” Warren told The Times.
Porter meets with members of the Youth Advisory Board for her district, made up of high school and college students.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Porter with district director Cody Mendoza, left, and senior field representative Tony Capitelli during the consumer protection videoconference roundtable conducted from her district office in Irvine last year.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
When she’s not spending time “in California meeting with workers trying to unionize or teachers struggling in the classroom, she’s trying to keep her family together,” the senator added. “Katie uses every minute she’s got towards being effective.”
In 2012, Warren recommended Porter to then-California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris to be the independent monitor over a $25-billion settlement of mortgage lenders. By then, Porter had become a tenured law professor at UC Irvine.
When she exited the role of independent monitor, Porter continued to teach, and parlayed the experience into serving as an expert witness in class-action cases and doing consulting work — sometimes for organizations that the state attorney general had investigated.
One example was her work for Ocwen Financial Corp. and Ocwen Loan Services, which in 2013 agreed to pay a $2.1-billion settlement to multiple states and the federal government. Porter served as an advisor to the companies in 2015 “regarding regulatory policy and consumer communications,” according to a 2016 version of her resume filed in court.
This work — a rare foray into corporate America for a politician who’s fostered a populist image — was scrubbed from her resume when she first ran for Congress, a story first reported by Politico.
At a recent debate, Porter said her role with the Ocwen companies was “a short-term engagement to address and improve how they contacted and communicated with Californians.”
::
It was in Irvine during this period that her marriage began to fall apart. Porter and her husband, Matthew Hoffman, became entangled in regular screaming matches, according to court records.
In early 2013, she sought a divorce, court records from which contain vivid descriptions of the couple’s fights.
Graphic details of the breakup have been splashed across news pages and websites, including an incident when Porter threw hot mashed potatoes at Hoffman. According to court records, both Porter and Hoffman sought help for anger management.
Hoffman did not respond to calls, text messages or emails from The Times seeking comment for this report.
Porter often talks about the pain of seeing these legal filings resurface during political campaigns, and worries about the impact they may have on her children.
Porter keeps track of time for her three kids as she prepares to leave for one of their events.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
“Who wants to have to go into their closet and find that box with all the divorce documents, and revisit all of that. It’s painful, and it’s hard,” she said. “Every time this comes up in the press, it’s a problem for them with their relationship with their dad, and I feel for them.”
With her ex-husband living out of the state, Porter is the main caregiver for the kids, which creates a balancing act of fitting middle school plays and water polo matches in with her congressional and campaign schedules. Most weeks she leaves Monday at 5:45 a.m. for the airport and races back to California after the House votes on Thursdays.
“Before I ran for Congress when I was a single parent, and I would miss stuff, I felt like people were: ‘Well, you should have thought about that before you got a divorce,’” Porter said. “Now, when I miss stuff, people are like, ‘Well, she’s serving our country, I’d be happy to pick Betsy up.’”
Still, her dual responsibilities have led to some oddball moments, she said.
Betsy once used a stamp of her mom’s signature from her congressional office to sign school permission slips. Luke told Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell that he didn’t understand the powerful regulator’s job. Once, while standing on the House floor during a heated debate over federal spending, Porter received a text from Paul, telling her they had no milk.
Masu Haque, a college friend and lawyer who doesn’t actively practice so she can spend more time with her kids, said Porter wishes she had more support: “I don’t think she wants to be me. I think she wishes she had a me.”
University of Michigan water polo coach Cassie Churnside and Porter talk at last year’s USA Water Polo Junior Olympics in Huntington Beach, where the congresswoman’s daughter was competing.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Porter’s dual roles may be unusual for a member of Congress. But she knows that many of her constituents are also juggling parenthood and work.
One day over the summer, she laid out a blue-checkered blanket and situated herself on the edge of a pool in Irvine. Nearby, Betsy’s water polo team prepared for its second match in as many days.
While other parents chatted in the bleachers, Porter sat with her campaign manager. They were preparing for an upcoming interview with a major labor union in hopes of winning its endorsement.
California Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) has died, GOP leadership and President Trump confirmed Tuesday morning.
“Jacquie and I are devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, in a post on X. “Our prayers are with Doug’s wife, Jill, and their children.”
LaMalfa, 65, was a fourth-generation rice farmer from Oroville and staunch Trump supporter who had represented his Northern California district for the past 12 years. His seat was one of several that was in jeopardy under the state’s redrawn districts approved by voters with Proposition 50.
Emergency personnel responded to a 911 call from LaMalfa’s residence at 6:50 p.m. Monday, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. The congressman was taken to the Enloe Medical Center in Chico, where he died while undergoing emergency surgery, authorities said.
An autopsy to determine the cause of death is planned, according to the sheriff’s office.
LaMalfa’s district — which stretches from the northern outskirts of Sacramento, through Redding at the northern end of the Central Valley and Alturas in the state’s northeast corner — is largely rural, and constituents have long said they felt underrepresented in liberal California.
LaMalfa put much of his focus on boosting federal water supplies to farmers, and seeking to reduce environmental restrictions on logging and extraction of other natural resources.
One LaMalfa’s final acts in the U.S. House was to successfully push for the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act, a long-standing financial aid program for schools surrounded by untaxed federal forest land, whose budgets could not depend upon property taxes, as most public schools do. Despite broad bipartisan support, Congress let it lapse in 2023.
In an interview with The Times as he was walking onto the House floor in mid-December, LaMalfa said he was frustrated with Congress’s inability to pass even a popular bill like that reauthorization.
The Secure Rural Schools Act, he said, was a victim of a Congress in which “it’s still an eternal fight over anything fiscal.” It is “annoying,” LaMalfa said, “how hard it is to get basic things done around here.”
In a statement posted on X, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said he considered LaMalfa “a friend and partner” and that the congressman was “deeply committed to his community and constituents, working to make life better for those he represented.”
“Doug’s life was one of great service and he will be deeply missed,” Schiff wrote.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement called LaMalfa a “devoted public servant who deeply loved his country, his state, and the communities he represented.”
“While we often approached issues from different perspectives, he fought every day for the people of California with conviction and care,” Newsom said.
Flags at the California State Capitol in Sacramento will be flown at half-staff in honor of the congressman, according to the governor.
Before his death, LaMalfa was facing a difficult reelection bid to hold his seat. After voters approved Proposition 50 in November — aimed at giving California Democrats more seats in Congress — LaMalfa was drawn into a new district that heavily favored his likely opponent, State Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the state’s northwest coast.
LaMalfa’s death puts the Republican majority in Congress in further jeopardy, with a margin of just two votes to secure passage of any bill along party lines after the resignation of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday evening.
Adding to the party’s troubles, Rep. Jim Baird, a Republican from Indiana, was hospitalized on Tuesday for a car crash described by the White House as serious. While Baird is said to be stable, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson from Louisiana, will not be able to rely on his attendance. And he has one additional caucus member – Thomas Massie of Kentucky – who has made a habit of voting against the president, bringing their margin for error down effectively to zero.
President Trump, addressing a gathering of GOP House members at the Kennedy Center, addressed the news at the start of his remarks, expressing “tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member” and stating his speech would be made in LaMalfa’s honor.
“He was the leader of the Western caucus – a fierce champion on California water issues. He was great on water. ‘Release the water!’ he’d scream out. And a true defender of American children.”
“You know, he voted with me 100% of the time,” Trump added.
A native of Oroville, LaMalfa attended Butte College and then earned an ag-business degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He served in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2008 and the California State Senate from 2010 to 2012. Staunchly conservative, he was an early supporter of Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California, and he also pushed for passage of the Protection of Marriage Act, Proposition 22, which banned same-sex marriage in California.
While representing California’s 1st District, LaMalfa focused largely on issues affecting rural California and other western states. In 2025, Congressman he was elected as Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, which focuses on legislation affected rural areas.
Politics
Federal officials to halt more than $10B in funding to 5 states over non-citizen benefit concerns: report
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The Trump administration is moving to freeze more than $10 billion in federal child care and social services funding to five Democrat-led states amid concerns taxpayer dollars were improperly diverted to non-citizens, according to a report.
Officials reportedly told The New York Post that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will freeze funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and the Social Services Block Grant, affecting California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York over concerns the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens.
More than $7.3 billion in TANF funding would be withheld from the five states, along with nearly $2.4 billion from the CCDF and another $869 million from the Social Services Block Grant.
The funding pauses were expected to be announced in letters sent to state officials Monday, citing concerns that benefits were improperly directed to non-U.S. citizens.
ABBOTT ORDERS COMPREHENSIVE FRAUD PROBE INTO TEXAS CHILD CARE FUNDING AFTER MINNESOTA SCANDAL
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will freeze funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and the Social Services Block Grant, affecting California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York over concerns the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens, according to a report. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
A 2019 audit by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found that New York State improperly claimed $24.7 million in federal reimbursement for child care subsidies paid to New York City that did not comply with program rules.
The audit attributed the overbilling to system errors and oversight failures – not criminal fraud – and state officials agreed to refund the funds and implement corrective controls, according to the report.
Following the release of details surrounding the potential funding freeze, New York Democrats sharply criticized the Trump administration’s move, arguing it would harm families who rely on child care assistance.
MINN. LAWMAKER ‘NOT SURPRISED’ BY WALZ ENDING CAMPAIGN, SAYS THERE WILL BE NO ‘STONE UNTURNED’ IN HEARINGS
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., accused the administration of using the issue for political retaliation and warned it would hurt children and low-income families across the state.
“Trump is threatening to freeze child care funding in New York and targeting our children for political retribution. It’s immoral and indefensible,” she wrote in a post on X. “I’m demanding the administration abandon any plans to freeze this funding and stop hurting New York families.”
Along with her post, Gillibrand also shared a public statement regarding the freezing of funds.
HHS CUTS OFF MINNESOTA CHILD CARE PAYMENTS OVER ALLEGED DAYCARE FRAUD SCHEME
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., spoke out after the Trump administration moved on Jan. 5, 2026, to freeze billions in federal child care and social services funding to several blue states. (Getty Images)
“My faith guides my life and public service. It’s our job to serve the people most in need and most at risk – no matter what state they live in or what political party their family or elected representatives belong to,” she said. “To use the power of the government to harm the neediest Americans is immoral and indefensible.
“This has nothing to do with fraud and everything to do with political retribution that punishes poor children in need of assistance,” Gillibrand added. “I demand that President Trump unfreeze this funding and stop this brazen attack on our children.”
The NY Post first reported that in December, HHS sent letters to Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey seeking information on whether billions in taxpayer funds may have unlawfully helped “fuel illegal and mass migration.”
Those requests were followed by investigations launched by the Treasury Department and the House Oversight Committee into a growing fraud scandal involving several nonprofits tied to the Somali community in the Twin Cities.
An estimated 130,000 illegal migrants were living in Minnesota as of 2023 — about 40,000 more than in 2019 and roughly 2% of the state’s population — according to the Pew Research Center. The state’s Somali diaspora exceeds 100,000 people, with most concentrated in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area.
The news on Monday came the same day Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced he was dropping his bid for a third term as governor amid stinging criticism of his handling of the state’s massive welfare assistance fraud scandal.
KAROLINE LEAVITT WARNS ‘PEOPLE WILL BE IN HANDCUFFS’ AS FEDS ZERO IN ON MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
GOP lawmakers in Minnesota are calling for Gov. Tim Walz to resign over the exploding fraud crisis. (Getty Images)
Walz launched his bid for a third four-year term as Minnesota governor in September, but in recent weeks has been facing a barrage of incoming political fire from President Donald Trump and Republicans, and some Democrats, over the large-scale theft in a state that has long prided itself on good governance.
More than 90 people — most from Minnesota’s large Somali community — have been charged since 2022 in what has been described as the nation’s largest COVID-era scheme.
How much money has been stolen through alleged money laundering operations involving fraudulent meal and housing programs, daycare centers and Medicaid services is still being tabulated. But the U.S. attorney in Minnesota said the scope of the fraud could exceed $1 billion and rise to as high as $9 billion.
MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL INTENSIFIES DEBATE OVER STRIPPING CITIZENSHIP
Quality Learning Center in Minnesota was found at the center of an alleged childcare fraud scandal in the state. (Madelin Fuerste / Fox News Channel)
Prosecutors said that some of the dozens that have already pleaded guilty in the case used the money to buy luxury cars, real estate, jewelry and international vacations, with some of the funds also sent overseas and potentially into the hands of Islamic terrorists.
Trump addressed Walz’s announcement of leaving the race on Monday, in a post on Truth Social. “Minnesota’s Corrupt Governor will possibly leave office before his Term is up but, in any event, will not be running again because he was caught, REDHANDED, along with Ilhan Omar, and others of his Somali friends, stealing Tens of Billions of Taxpayer Dollars,” the president wrote. “I feel certain the facts will come out, and they will reveal a seriously unscrupulous, and rich, group of ‘SLIMEBALLS.’
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“Governor Walz has destroyed the State of Minnesota, but others, like Governor Gavin Newscum, JB Pritzker, and Kathy Hochul, have done, in my opinion, an even more dishonest and incompetent job,” Trump added. “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!”
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
Tony Dokoupil took his place at the anchor desk of the “CBS Evening News” on Monday as the troubled news division undergoes reinvention under its new editor in chief, Bari Weiss.
Dokoupil was supposed to start his run with a trip to 10 cities across the U.S., to connect with viewers outside of the media centers of New York and Washington. CBS News leased a private 14-seat jet for the tour, but the plan was delayed once the U.S. military action in Venezuela became a major story early Saturday morning.
Instead, Dokoupil took the chair Saturday night and broadcast live from San Francisco before returning to New York for his official premiere on Monday. The tour is still on and will commence Tuesday from Miami.
Dokoupil’s new role will be the first major test for Weiss, who came to the division with no previous experience in television or with running a massive journalism operation. Choosing on-air talent who help drive ratings for the network is considered the most critical task for a TV news executive.
Dokoupil, 45, follows the duo of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, who co-anchored “CBS Evening News” for a year. The program tried to bring more in-depth pieces to the typically fast-paced network evening news format. But it lost viewers and put CBS further behind “ABC World News Tonight With David Muir” and “NBC Nightly News With Tom Llamas.”
Dokoupil’s first official broadcast returned to a style that resembled previous iterations of “CBS Evening News,” with a tight shot of the anchor sitting at a desk in a newsroom.
Over the past year, Dickerson and DuBois were seated at a long desk and often interacted with correspondents shown on a large screen. The program no longer includes an in-studio meteorologist to present national weather.
Dokoupil’s arrival marks the fifth anchor change at the “CBS Evening News” since 2017. NBC has made one change since then, while Muir has been in his role at ABC since 2014.
CBS News promoted Dokoupil’s launch with a whimsical social media video that showed the journalist presenting a piece of paper with his name written on it to commuters at Grand Central Terminal in New York. Asked to pronounce “Dokoupil,” few of the commuters came close even though he had been co-host of “CBS Mornings” for several years.
The promo seemed like an odd choice given how the network evening news anchor has traditionally been a position requiring gravitas and comforting familiarity for its habit-driven audience.
Dokoupil also issued a video message last Thursday suggesting organizations such as CBS News are no longer reliable sources of information for much of the public.
“A lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair,” he said. “But for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it’s not just us. It’s all of legacy media.”
“The point is, on too many stories the press has missed the story,” he added. “Because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites and not enough on you.”
The anchor went further on his Instagram account, where he cited Walter Cronkite, who sat at the desk during the division’s glory years of the 1960s and ‘70s. “I can promise we’ll be more accountable and more transparent than Cronkite or anyone else of his era,” he said.
Dokoupil’s claim prompted a response from Michael Socolow, a journalism professor at the University of Maine and the son of Sandy Socolow, who produced Cronkite’s broadcast.
Socolow noted how Cronkite believed the public should be skeptical of what it saw on TV news and take in other sources and points of view.
In an interview with The Times, Socolow said Cronkite was never comfortable with his designation as “the most trusted man in America.” CBS News touted that point, which was based on a single public opinion poll.
“Cronkite thought it wouldn’t be in the public interest to be too trustful of any specific media source,” Socolow said. “And he made that clear in public speeches and TV interviews for decades.”
Socolow posted a clip of a 1972 interview with Cronkite as an example.
“I don’t think they ought to believe me, or they ought to believe Brinkley, or they ought to believe anybody who’s on the air, or they ought to get all their news from one television station,” Cronkite said.
The latest change at “CBS Evening News” also follows one of the most tumultuous periods in the long history of CBS News. The organization was shaken by the Dec. 20 decision by Weiss to pull a “60 Minutes” piece on the harsh El Salvador mega-prison the U.S. government is using to hold undocumented migrants.
Weiss believed the story needed more reporting, including an on-camera response from Trump White House officials. The White House, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department had all declined comment to “60 Minutes.”
But the decision to yank the announced segment the day before it was scheduled to air led “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi to claim in an email to colleagues that the decision was political. Alfonsi had worked on the story for months and had it vetted by the division’s standards and practices department.
“Government silence is a statement, not a VETO,” Alfonsi wrote in the email. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.”
Alfonsi’s reporting did show up on Canada’s Global TV service, which had been given a feed of the program before the change was made, an embarrassing operational error by CBS News. The segment was shared widely on social media.
Every move by Weiss has received heightened scrutiny since she was given editorial control over CBS News in October. She joined the network after parent company Paramount acquired the Free Press, a digital news and opinion platform she co-founded. The site made its name by calling out perceived liberal bias by legacy media organizations and so-called woke policies.
Media industry critics have used the “60 Minutes” controversy to suggest Weiss was installed to placate President Trump as Paramount pursues the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which would require government regulatory approval. A person close to Weiss who was not authorized to comment publicly said Paramount had no say on the Alfonsi piece.
Paramount already paid $16 million to Trump to settle a defamation suit against “60 Minutes.” Trump claimed the program deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris, calling it election interference. CBS News did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement.
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