Scott Pelley recently sparked outrage after slamming Donald Trump in a fiery commencement speech. While addressing the Class of 2025 at Wake Forest University last week, the 60 Minutes anchor told graduating students that “insidious fear” has reached schools, businesses, and homes.
60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley sparks outrage over fiery rant against Trump
“Your country needs you — the country that has given you so much is calling you, the class of 2025, your country needs you and it needs you today,” Pelley said while speaking at the North Carolina university.
Pelley further said, “This morning our sacred rule of law is under attack,” adding that journalism, universities, and freedom of speech are also “under attack.” “Insidious fear is reaching throughout schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts,” he went on.
The 67-year-old then highlighted the “fear to speak to America.” “If our government is, in Lincoln’s phrase ‘of the people, by the people, for the people,’ then why are we afraid to speak? Ignorance works for power,” he continued.
“Power can change the definition of the words we used to describe reality. This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this,” Pelley added. The CBS News reporter's speech was met with severe criticism online, with netizens calling it “unhinged” and “angry.”
{{/usCountry}}“Power can change the definition of the words we used to describe reality. This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this,” Pelley added. The CBS News reporter's speech was met with severe criticism online, with netizens calling it “unhinged” and “angry.”
{{/usCountry}}One X user wrote, “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest…as he speaks openly and freely in America,” adding, “This self-important, sermonizing propagandist is what passes for a legacy media ‘journalist.’”
Meanwhile, Curtis Houck, News Busters managing editor wrote on X, “Pompous CBS journalist Scott Pelley closed his commencement address at Wake Forest by telling graduates they “are the fierce defenders of democracy, the seekers of truth,” and “the vanguard against ignorance” that’s taken over the country (i.e. Trump).”