MAGA-Coded CBS Anchor Scrambles to Spin Embarrassing ‘Mistake’

A mainstay of CBS’s MAGA-friendly makeover has conceded that his failure to cover President Donald Trump’s trip to China from within China last month was a “mistake.”

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Tony Dokoupil, the 45-year-old conservative-leaning anchor, took over the network’s flagship evening broadcast in January—part of a wider overhaul at CBS News under its MAGA-curious editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.

Dokoupil told The Wall Street Journal that the visa lapse was a shared failure that never should have happened. The newspaper report also reveals that Dokoupil owes much of his on-camera look to his wife, journalist Katy Tur, 42, who remade his image years ago and still critiques his broadcasts.

“It was a mistake,” he said of the snafu that derailed his China trip. “I don’t know. It’s all of our mistake, but someone should’ve got a visa.”

The anchor has tried to put on a brave face throughout the ordeal. He said he stood by his team’s reporting from the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, and singled out an interview with Jimmy Lai’s son, months after the jailed Hong Kong businessman was handed a 20-year prison term in February, as a point of pride.

“I feel good about what we did,” he said. “But I’m not going to pretend like it was our first choice.”

The last-minute switch left Dokoupil racing to board a Taipei-bound flight that touched down barely before he went live, the Journal reported. He was also teamed with an unfamiliar cameraman who then collapsed on-air, as the Daily Beast reported at the time.

Weiss arrived at CBS News in October, soon after Trump allies Larry and David Ellison sealed a merger of the network’s parent company Paramount with their own media conglomerate Skydance and bought her media venture, The Free Press, for about $150 million.

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Regulators had cleared the merger not long after Paramount, under White House pressure, paid Trump a $16 million settlement over a 60 Minutes sit-down with Kamala Harris that Trump claimed had been favorably edited.

Weiss’s stint at the news division has been rocky, and a string of correspondents and producers have left or been fired. Former staff have stoked claims that CBS is tilting its coverage to flatter the president—which the network denies.

The latest attack came from 68-year-old 60 Minutes veteran Scott Pelley, who’s thought to have been forced out after a clash with Weiss, and who later told The New York Times that the editor-in-chief has been “murdering” the storied program.

When asked by the Journal about Pelley’s claims of editorial interference, Dokoupil’s response was measured. “When they make comments like that, I pay attention,” he said of his colleagues. “But I can only speak for what’s happening on this side of the street, and it’s not the experience that I’ve had.”

The newspaper also reports that Dokoupil’s wife, Tur, an anchor herself at MS NOW, has shaped Dokoupil’s television persona for years.

While he was chasing full-time TV work during his MSNBC days, she told him to get “rid of your corduroy jacket and your glasses look,” Dokupil told the Journal. He added that Tur also advised him: “Do a hundred push-ups, put on a black T-shirt, nothing else. And put your hair up real big.”

He followed the advice, and ABC came calling—though he angled for CBS instead.

She still vets his wardrobe and weighs in on his performance behind the desk. “My lovely wife will let me know about it,” he said of any phoniness on air.

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