Last Saturday, longtime CBS News anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley gave a commencement address at Wake Forest University that seethed with implicit hate for President Trump and the MAGA movement, telling graduates “freedom of speech,” “journalism,” “our sacred rule of law,” and “universities” are all “under attack” with “an insidious fear” permeating American “businesses,” “homes,” “school[s],” and even “private thoughts.”
Pelley encouraged graduates to rise up, comparing them to Unionists fighting the Confederacy, the Allies fighting the Nazis, and the civil rights movement standing up to segregationists. So, to make sure we’re all on the same page, Pelley believes Trump and tens of millions of supporters are akin to Confederates, Nazis, and segregationists (so the Ku Klux Klan).
As first flagged by our friends at the Washington Free Beacon, the speech was a barnburner. Pelley started by invoking London and specifically a roof in which Edward R. Murrow reported during The Blitz and the statue of George Orwell with the quote “[i]f liberty means anything at all, it means telling someone something that they don’t want to hear.”
He admitted “some people in the audience who don’t want to hear what I have to say today, but I appreciate your forbearance in this small act of liberty.”
This led right into the first meltdown about America “need[ing] you” because the country has moved away from a mindset in which “[r]easonable people [can] differ about the life of our country” instead of “demonize” and “destroy.”
Pelley launched into the first of many ugly broadsides (click “expand”):
But in this moment, This moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack, universities are under attack, freedom of speech is under attack. An insidious fear is reaching through our school, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts. The fear to speak in America. If our government, in Lincoln’s phrase, of the people. By the people, for the people, then why are we afraid to speak? The Wake Forest class of 1861 — they did not choose their time of calling. The class of 1941 did not choose. The class of 1968 did not choose. History chose them. And now, history is calling you, the class of 2025. You may not feel prepared, but you are. You are not descended of fearful people. You brought your values to school with you and now wait for us has trained you to seek the truth to find the meaning of life.
After he fawned over three people he believes have illustrated the true “meaning of their lives in a moment of crisis, not unlike what we have today” (including Volodymyr Zelenskyy), Pelley showed he has no understanding of why the public has lost trust in our universities thanks to its place as a home for far-left thought, Marxism, and terrorist sympathizers.
Pelley cheered some comical open letter signed by universities that included the insistence they are beacons of “open inquiry,” the “pursuit of truth,” and home to anyone “without fear of retribution, censorship or deportation.”
If that were the case, it’s likely groups like Turning Point USA and Young America’s Foundation wouldn’t have to exist.
Pelley clung to the “pursuit of truth” line to launch another smear against tens of millions of Americans:
Pulling out all the historical stops, he said “speaking the truth” does “work” as evidenced by Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail and, within a few years, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act became law though “both...are under attack.”
Another historical comparison? Maya Angelou:
He said following this time period is another one of America’s “existential threats,” so graduates best “not settle.”
This went into his conclusion:
Wake Forest administrators fawned over Pelley before he even gave that speech. Provost Michelle Gillespie declared: “Journalistic integrity is paramount to Mr. Pelley, and his reputation for professionalism, accuracy, and unflinching honesty has facilitated face-to-face conversations with prominent newsmakers and leading voices of our time.”
School president Susan Rae Wente similarly trumpeted the pompous partisan as “a gifted storyteller who can humanize any event, and some of his most riveting narratives are about everyday people” and believes “the people are the story.”
She added he has “remind[ed] us of the importance of free speech and free press in a democratic society,” “model[ed] pro-humanitate values in his intentional efforts to humanize historic events,” “inspir[ed] future generations of journalists to adopt an uncompromising approach to broadcast journalism,” and “tirelessly defend[ed] democracy’s need for free press and free speech in challenging times.”
To see the relevant transcript from the May 19 commencement, click here.
