CBS News Staff Push Back on Bari Weiss Over Alaska ‘Decoy Dan’ Scandal
CBS reporters reportedly dismissed the controversy as routine political maneuvering, while Weiss challenged them to explain why it wasn’t a scandal.
According to Fox News, CBS News reporters strongly resisted editor-in-chief Bari Weiss during a meeting over the Alaska “Decoy Dan” Senate ballot scandal.
Weiss pointed out, “This is a scandal.”
Weiss is correct. We’ve known for a long time that something was fishy about Dan J. Sullivan, which gained national steam after The New York Times finally reported on it.
The report said that Democrat candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign sought out a man with the same name as Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.
But insiders told Fox News that CBS reporters made excuses not to cover it:
Many on the call shrugged it off as routine politics and said Republicans have also engaged in similar scheming.
When Weiss asked for other examples of ballot confusion, “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan pointed to New Hampshire Senate candidate John Sununu, suggesting that midterm voters might confuse him with his brother, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
CBS News political correspondent Ed O’Keefe also insisted that such tactics are nothing new. Earlier that morning, during his appearance on “CBS Mornings,” O’Keefe stressed to viewers that what happened in Alaska “could be a dirty trick, but it’s not illegal,” adding that “this has happened before, kind of.” He pointed to the 2016 Alaska Senate race when former Anchorage mayor Dan Sullivan — no relation to the U.S. Senator of the same name — briefly ran against incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the GOP primary, hoping “name recognition” of the other sitting senator would help his own candidacy.
A separate CBS staffer on the call pushed back against the notion that colleagues like Brennan and O’Keefe were trying to downplay the scandal, telling Fox News Digital they were providing context to the story being discussed.
Well, um, the Sununu brothers aren’t trying to confuse anyone. They also belong to a well-known political family.
“Decoy Dan” literally came out of nowhere.
The Alaska Division of Elections removed “Decoy Dan” from the ballot, citing evidence that he chose the same name and party as Sullivan to confuse voters. He is using a name he doesn’t typically use and even designed his campaign website to look like the incumbent senator’s.
The Alaska Supreme Court overturned the board’s decision.
But it looks like the reporters lost because I found a few CBS News articles and videos about the story:
- Two Dan Sullivans: What to know about Alaska’s Senate race as ballot fight heats up
- Peltola says she “knew nothing about” the other Dan Sullivan as ballot controversy roils Alaska Senate race
- DOJ issues new subpoenas in Alaska Senate probe, asks judge to intervene over “conspiracy” involving 2 Dan Sullivans
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The Chicken Broadcasting System objects to reporting the news. Nothing out of the normal for them. The news maggots are doing their damned best to destroy America.
I should have called them the Communist Broadcasting System.
Margaret Brennan is a joke, but not one who makes you laugh.
Weiss needs to get the authority from her boss to start firing some of these AWFL’s like Brennan who have ruined network news. Cut a few and the rest will either leave on their own or get in line.
It would appear the Bari Weiss has exactly ZERO control over her newsroom and its staff.
In her position she should have simply ordered them to do a thorough, professional job of investigative news reporting (not today’s limp and biased “journalism”). Had anybody protested they’d get exactly one more chance to agree to actually PERFORM THEIR JOB, and then be ungently escorted out of the door, out of the building, and out of their job. They would be allowed back at a later time, under armed escort, to remove their personal belongings.
This is how it is done in every major company in the US. When the division I worked in at Medium-Corp laid off 200 out of around 250 people during a massive downturn over the space of 6 months I lost track of the number of co-workers who were called into a meeting and terminated right then, and subsequently escorted out of the building. They were typically brought in after hours (since I was working 60-hour weeks I was usually there) and not even allowed to talk to their former co-workers on company property.
She’d better gain control over her horrifically entitled-feeling employees or she’s going to have nothing left of her position.
Republican state Senator Frank Artiles, was convicted in October 2024 for orchestrating a “ghost candidate” campaign to siphon votes during the 2020 election.
It was a very similar case, but Ds will do what Ds do.
I don’t recall any previous cases where the first and last name were identical.
Unlike Milhouse’s take on rank(l)ed choice voting, this is a classic issue as the Dems wanted more “republican” candidates and campaigned to reduce Democrat candidates. Divide and conquer. The second choice for “republican” was a plant with the third one also a ringer. The one bright spot is that with mail in ballots, the US Government through the Postal Service has a say in the matter. The “everyone does.. or could to this” is the prime excuse… a “dirty trick” but legal. Can anyone point to a combined national/state/local “conspiracy” of this magnitude EVER attempted by anyone else? Reminds me of the example from the Soviet era….only two runners in a race… one American and one Soviet. The American won and the Soviets reported the American came in next to last.
I’m not up the issue…but my thought is that the ranked choice system was introduced and rammed into law by progressive democrats and maybe a few RINOs for the very specific purpose you mentioned; two candidates from one political party vs, one candidate from the opposing party all on the ballot…so what happens?
The same thing happened with Bill Clinton…twice…thanks to H. Ross Perot, who split the Republican vote and Slick Willy won…not with ranked choice, but with the Electoral College; but he never won a majority of votes either time (less than 50% of the popular vote).
So it went…but whoever came up with this ranked choice construct clearly had a very specific goal in mind…and we just saw it play out in real time.
Ranked choice in Alaska was rammed into being by your favorite senator, Sen Murkowski after she failed to win an election. It’s why she is in DC today. Alaska does have a chance to fix it this election as there is a ballot measure to repeal it. This might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
If you really think that’s what happens, then you’re an idiot. Preferential voting is precisely what prevents that from happening. Had the 1992 presidential election used preferential voting, then Perot’s voters would each have had the chance to say where they wanted their vote to go if Perot was eliminated, and therefore the only way Clinton could have won is if a majority actually wanted him. (Which is possible; the idea that Perot pulled more votes from Bush than from Clinton is just a theory. RCV would have given us the answer.)
Decoy Dan has gone missing.
He should be out there campaigning hard.
Not even the Process Servers can find him.
Decoy Dan tried to exactly enter his name as that of Sen. Sullivan. State said he had to use his real full name instead. A run in with an orca would be fair, but orcas are selective in their tastes (local pods like fish and transient pods go for seals and such).
Bari needs to fire a bunch of people.
…out of a cannon…into a brick wall.
“CBS reporters reportedly dismissed the controversy as routine political maneuvering,”
indicting themselves once again as
our cheating,,,ogagooga is good/social justice in action
They would rather be a Dan Rather than tell the truth.
Everyone on the call that refused or recommended not covering a scandal in a Senate race should be terminated. The bias is too obvious.
CBS reporters also added:
we thought that Platners nazitats were pretty cool too
Watergate was “routine political maneuvering”.
I almost think it’s unfair to blame the CBS news people for their attitude. When you see everything as politics, why wouldn’t you see even this as just politics?
Then I remember that the reason they see everything as politics is because they’re leftists and totally incompetent journalists and I also remember that you don’t hate the media enough.
If you expect any honesty at all out of CBS you are going to be sorely disappointed. There’s none there to be found
Here in Washington State, when Republicans tried exactly the same thing (but with regard to a utility board election, not a national election with implications for the future of the entire country) the Democrat AG immediately threatened the candidates with prosecution, forcing their withdrawal from the race. The AG did not consider this “business as usual,” but correctly characterized it as an attempt to perpetrate a fraud and to steal votes from people who might have been fooled by the scheme. Everyone involved with the scheme in Alaska needs to be similarly threatened and then prosecuted if they do not amend their ways (the latter may not now be possible). (Yesterday I posted a reference to Alaska state law that covers this situation and the scheme is illegal.)
I don’t recall their names but recently in Illinois there was a similar situation of Republicans that sought persons with the also exact same name as the Democrat to go on a ballot.
Again, when threatened with prosecution, they dropped out.
Rules for thee but not for me.
“He pointed to the 2016 Alaska Senate race when former Anchorage mayor Dan Sullivan — no relation to the U.S. Senator of the same name — briefly ran against incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the GOP primary, hoping “name recognition” of the other sitting senator would help his own candidacy.”
This, at best, is an imperfect analogy. First, Mayor Dan Sullivan was not unknown as an individual to Alaska voters, as he was already holding an office. Second, he wasn’t in a race against someone with the same name. Nobody intending to vote for Murkowski could possibly confuse her with any “Dan Sullivan.”
I take that back. This analogy fails completely on the second count.
No, but some voters could have thought that the real Dan Sullivan was running against Murkowski, and therefore voted for him.
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