The overhaul of CBS News under President Donald Trump and MAGA-aligned leadership does not appear to be going well. Staff members are reportedly turning on one another as viewership of the rebooted network wanes, with journalists fighting for a share of a shrinking audience.

Insiders told RadarOnline that the ambitious journalists see one another as competition and are each playing to win. While anchor Tony Dokoupil was recently on vacation, correspondent Matt Gutman stepped into the CBS Evening News anchor chair and delivered 4.1 million viewers — the broadcast's best weekly performance in 17 weeks and its first time topping 4 million since March.

"Tony is panicked," a source told Radar. "He knows television is a ratings business, and when your replacement suddenly delivers the biggest audience in months, people start asking questions."

Insiders said the relationship between the two men has "gone from frosty to downright hostile."

The network's viewership has lagged since the arrival of Bari Weiss, who was hired as editor-in-chief of CBS News in October 2025, when Paramount Skydance acquired CBS. Weiss had no television-news experience, but she is the founder of the conservative outlet the Free Press, and she put a conservative stamp on the formerly unaffiliated news organization. Her installation came amid a broader period of upheaval at CBS News: the network's parent company, Paramount, paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump over the editing of a 2024 "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris, and the Paramount-Skydance merger had faced regulatory review from the Trump-aligned FCC before its completion — decisions that drew criticism from press-freedom groups and fueled questions about editorial independence at the network.

Former network veterans have called CBS News a disgraced shell of a news organization following the firing of famed "60 Minutes" senior correspondent Scott Pelley and the gutting of much of the rest of its staff. The changes have also carried legal and business consequences: "60 Minutes" correspondent Tanya Simon and executive producer Bill Owens, who departed during the upheaval, filed a $21 million arbitration claim against CBS alleging age and gender discrimination, a dispute that remains unresolved.

Weiss's renovation did not catch on with the audience, so when ratings ticked up under Gutman, Dokoupil allegedly freaked, according to the Daily Mail.

A source told the Daily Mail in early August that they found it "odd" Dokoupil would leave his post for so long at such a pivotal time. "Everyone is entitled to a vacation, but when you are trying to build an audience and fighting to right a failing ship, taking a two-weeker is a head-scratcher."

"Makes you wonder if Dokoupil has given up," the source told Radar. How the anchor competition resolves — and whether Gutman's ratings bump proves durable — will be closely watched as an early test of whether Weiss's retooled CBS News can stabilize its audience.