Anderson Cooper Makes Cryptic Comments About Future of ‘60 Minutes’ During His Final Appearance

Anderson Cooper hosted 60 Minutes for his final time over the weekend, and before he left, he seemed to subtly sound the alarm on the future of the program under CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and what he previously called the show’s “rightward direction.”

“I hope 60 Minutes remains 60 Minutes,” Cooper, 58, said during his farewell on Sunday, May 17. “There’s very few things that have been around for as long as 60 Minutes has and maintain the quality that it has.”

The CNN correspondent added that while he thinks “things should evolve and change,” he hopes “the core of what 60 Minutes is, always remains.”

“I think the independence of 60 Minutes has been critical,” Cooper continued. “And I think the trust it has with viewers is critical to the success of 60 Minutes.”

As National Enquirer previously reported, Cooper first announced his decision to walk away from the show in February.

“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honors of my career,” he said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly at the time. “For nearly 20 years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now, and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they still want to spend time with me.”

However, his announcement came just months after Weiss, 42, took over as editor-in-chief, and Cooper was just one of several well-known broadcasters leaving other CBS News shows like CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings.

Status reported that Cooper’s exit was due to him not being aligned with the “rightward direction” Weiss was taking the network.

“He wasn’t comfortable with the direction the show was taking under Bari, and is in a position where he doesn’t have to put up with it,” a source told the outlet in February.