Posted in: CBS, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: cbs evening news, opinion, trump

CBS Evening News: Was Tony Dokoupil's Sign-Off a FOX "News" Red Flag?

CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil ended tonight's Trump interview broadcast with a sign-off that sounded way too much like FOX "News."

CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil found himself kicking off his run sooner than expected after the Trump Administration announced that the U.S. had launched a military strike against Venezuela to arrest its leader, Nicolás Maduro, and that the U.S. would begin running the country for the foreseeable future. Reviewing his debut, we noted that Dokoupil's interview with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was the biggest red flag. The surface questions were nothing that you wouldn't expect to be asked of any decently seasoned journalist. However, having Hegseth on for that much of the half-hour and not following up on a number of key things he said was not a good sign that CBS News' CBS Evening News had any interest in follow-ups and pushbacks for the sake of getting the truth out to its viewers.

With the evening news broadcast trailing in ratings by 23% compared to this time last year, Dokoupil was presented with another opportunity to demonstrate that facts and the truth matter, regardless of who was being interviewed. Running uninterrupted for nearly half of tonight's news broadcast, Dokoupil interviewed Donald Trump at a Ford Motor Co. factory in Dearborn, Michigan. Over the course of the 14-minute back-and-forth, a number of issues were covered – from the U.S. economy and the killing of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE agent to accusations that Trump weaponized the Department of Justice to go after Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell and more. One of the reasons why so many subjects were able to be discussed had to do with the lack of follow-up and fact-checking on Dokoupil's part.

Though threatening "very strong action" against Iran over its leaders' killing of protestors, Trump offered little in terms of what that could mean – even in generalities. In addition, Trump boasted of having "ended eight wars" (a claim that's been debunked) and made claims that "there's no inflation," adding that current economic factors in play are at levels "that they haven't seen in about nine years." Trump's words aren't supported by the numbers, though. In December 2025, consumer prices rose about 2.7% (according to the Department of Labor), and inflation was below 2% at specific points during Trump's first term.

Shortly after, Dokoupil posted a clip of how he wrapped tonight's broadcast, reaffirming that "You may not agree with everything you hear on our broadcast, but we trust you to hear it, and we trust you to decide for yourselves." That sounds eerily too much like the FOX "News" motto, "We Report. You Decide," which is just another way of abdicating your commitment as a journalist to the truth:

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