CBS News fired longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent and former “CBS Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley on Tuesday, one day after he had a tense and confrontational exchange with new “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton during a staff meeting.

The termination came hours after Pelley met privately with CBS News executives. The meeting ended without any clear resolution, and Pelley told staffers he expected to be let go.

In a “60 Minutes” all-staff introductory meeting Monday, Pelley accused CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss of “murdering the show” and called Bilton’s qualifications “slender.” Bilton had been named the new executive producer by Weiss the previous week.

Pelley also pressed Bilton about the recent firings of former executive producer Tanya Simon and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Bilton said those decisions had predated his appointment.

In the termination letter, Bilton did not mince words. “Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you,” Bilton wrote, adding that Pelley’s “employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”

In a separate memo to “60 Minutes” staff, Bilton wrote: “I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly. I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.”

Pelley, in a statement following his dismissal, offered little conciliation. “Incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc,” he said, referring in part to Weiss. He also expressed gratitude “for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives.”

The firing caps a months-long escalation between Pelley and CBS’s new leadership. Tensions at “60 Minutes” had been simmering since correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi clashed with Weiss last year over the decision to postpone a segment about the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan men to an El Salvador prison. Alfonsi alleged the story was abruptly pulled for “political reasons.” Weiss maintained it was “not ready” for air. The segment, titled “Inside CECOT,” ultimately aired in January and featured statements from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security that were not in the original version.

Pelley’s dismissal ends a 37-year career with CBS News. During that time he won 51 Emmy Awards, four Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Silver Batons, and three George Foster Peabody Awards. As a war correspondent, he covered Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Sudan. On Sept. 11, 2001, he was reporting from the World Trade Center when the North Tower collapsed.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)