• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 4 hours ago

Opinions differ over what Bari Weiss thinks about President Trump -- his points of view, his policies and the style in which he asserts them.

In the main, she is widely described as hard to pin down on where she stands on the political spectrum. 

She has reportedly described herself as a “left-leaning centrist.” In 2018, The Washington Post said Weiss positions herself as “a liberal uncomfortable with the excesses of left-wing culture.”

Whether or not she identifies as left of center or right of it, Weiss seems to be aligned with the President in one way -- the style in which she has made her presence known at CBS News since she took over as editor-in-chief last October.

Like Trump, Weiss is an agent of change, but also an agent of chaos. Creating chaos in the workplace plays like a deliberate strategy for both of them.

The goal: To make everyone around them feel uneasy, to keep them off-balance and on their guard -- especially those who have been around a while and are supremely comfortable with the status quo.

For both Weiss and Trump, the status quo is not acceptable. Changes are coming and if you do not accept that, then pack up your things and vacate the premises.

Weiss made her intentions known early in her tenure as the de facto head of CBS News (despite the division having a president, Tom Cibrowski).

Last November, The Wall Street Journal reported that she went around her new workplace telling people that she intended to “blow up” CBS News, a place she knew nothing about. (Actual quote, as reported by the WSJ: “I wanna blow things up!”)

Trump never used the words “blow things up,” but he has made it clear that the status quo holds no interest for him.

Weiss and Trump have both created atmospheres of chaos in their respective workplaces. 

But as President, the chaos Trump creates radiates further outward than Weiss’s. The chaos he sows makes millions uneasy, not just his White House minions.

The two are similar when it comes to hiring. Remember resumés? These seem to have gone the way of the dodo.

Weiss herself had no experience in TV production, much less running a networks news division, when she was named editor-in-chief of CBS News by Paramount Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison, scion to his family’s Oracle fortune.

For various high-ranking posts, Trump hired a Fox morning-show host as Secretary of Defense (Pete Hegseth), a TV talk-show doctor as administrator of Medicare (Mehmet Oz M.D.), Fox News contributor Jeanine Pirro as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and a co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment as Secretary of Education (Linda McMahon).

Presidents often appoint people with little or no evident qualifications for cabinet posts, but having said that, some turn out better than expected, and some don’t.

Weiss’s most prominent hiree to date is Nick Bilton, the man whose presence as the new executive producer of “60 Minutes” has turned the show upside down. 

In a sane world, a guy like Bilton who has no previous experience in TV news would never be hired to run an asset as valuable to a company as “60 Minutes.”

Nevertheless, Weiss hired him for the job anyway, and in the process, drove out an executive producer, Tanya Simon, who worked at CBS News for 30 years. 

Then came Scott Pelley, the veteran anchor and correspondent who went out fighting earlier this week.

Oh, well, as the old saying goes, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. But “60 Minutes” is not an egg, and neither are the people who work there. 

But Weiss is evidently an egg-breaker. And so is her apparent role model, Donald Trump.