On Sunday afternoon, about 36 hours after the United States and Israel launched their joint attack on Iran, CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil caught one of the last commercial flights from New York to Amman, landing in Jordan just hours before the airspace was shut down on Monday. Since then, he has been anchoring the show from Amman and Tel Aviv—the only U.S. network news anchor broadcasting from the Middle East during this initial and uncertain phase of war.

Tony’s presence in the Middle East has been the cornerstone of a particularly robust week for CBS News, which began with an impromptu Evening News special on Saturday night. He has landed interviews with Israeli president Isaac Herzog and I.D.F. spokesman Effie Defrin, and the broadcast has been furnished by on-the-ground reporting from correspondents Matt Gutman and Charlie D’Agata in Tel Aviv and foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab in Doha.

Remarkably, the network’s command of this historic geopolitical conflict has inspired unexpected pride and optimism among staff who had otherwise been discouraged by weeks of unforced errors and internal drama. Notably, several CBS anchors and correspondents attributed the recent wins to the otherwise divisive Bari Weiss, whose connections with senior officials in both Washington and Jerusalem have enabled the network to anticipate this week’s developments and book major interviews. They also noted that her personal interest in the issue—she has long been an ardent supporter of Israel and critic of the Iranian regime—makes her particularly invested in this story. And while some staffers say her bias is influencing the coverage, most sources seemed reassured by her passion and investment.

“Bari is finding her sea legs,” said one CBS News insider who had previously been critical of her leadership. “She’s into it. She knows the staff more. She’s starting to wrap her hands around CBS culture and newsgathering.”

In the midst of the Iran coverage, Bari and network president Tom Cibrowski have also had other irons in the fire. Bari has attended prep sessions for Tony’s forthcoming CBS News town hall with J.D. Vance. (No one at CBS News seemed to know whether Tony would fly back for this or do it remotely from the Levant.) The network has also been out front on this week’s Texas Senate primaries, landing interviews with John Cornyn and James Talarico. “Amid getting Tony into Jordan and us using Bari’s connections and getting U.S. and Israeli officials to talk, we also managed to find time to cover the opening act of the 2026 campaign,” one correspondent said, noting that rival networks hadn’t had a similar ground presence in the Lone Star State.

Also this week, CBS News finally re-signed Gayle King, ending a talent negotiation that suddenly seemed near existential after Anderson Cooper decided to exit 60 Minutes. Bari is also getting Gayle at a steep discount, per sources familiar. Though the network declined to share terms of the contract, I’m told Gayle agreed to far less than the $15 million per year she’d been making, befitting the industry’s contraction. In the coming days, Bari will also start testing candidates for the CBS Mornings co-host role that Tony vacated when he went to Evening News.

These recent moves have helped to offset some of the early misgivings around Bari’s inexperience in television, which manifested in high-profile missteps like the “Inside CECOT” debacle, a sloppy Evening News rollout, losing Anderson, etcetera. Bari still has many critics, of course, including those who believe her support of Israel has made CBS’s coverage seem credulous of the administration and dismissive of its critics. Bari’s decision to retweet one Iranian dissident’s criticism of Zohran Mamdani with a fire emoji inspired some handwringing about her commitment to objectivity. But she doesn't give a shit about the objectivity debate, nor do the Ellisons, who are equally ardent supporters of Israel and installed Bari at CBS News precisely because of her politics—and who, as I’m sure you’ve heard, are licking their chops as they prepare to put their hands all over CNN, presumably horrified at what Jay Sures has scored for his clients over the years.

In any event, Bari, who has acknowledged her early mistakes, surely knows that the benefits of a good news cycle last only as long as the news cycle itself. For the moment, the improving narrative could influence the powers that be at Paramount Skydance as they begin mapping out their plans for CNN and beyond. Fresh off winning the Warner Bros. Discovery sweepstakes, the leadership team has only started discussing their operating plans for the news division. And as I noted last week, the extent of Bari’s role at that network will almost certainly rest on her ability to succeed at this one.