Fired “60 Minutes” star Scott Pelley is facing ridicule after claiming he had “been in combat” in Afghanistan and Iraq as he touted his career following his dramatic ouster from CBS News.
“I have been in combat in Afghanistan. I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast,” Pelley told the New York Times.
Pelley’s remarks sparked widespread mockery on social media, where critics derided what they viewed as his self-importance and rejected comparisons between journalists and military personnel.
One X user posted what appeared to be an AI-generated image depicting Pelley as Rambo.
“A regular Ernie Pyle, this guy,” one commenter wrote, a reference to the famed Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was killed while covering the Pacific campaign during World War Two.
Another added: “Carrying a camera and a notebook is not being ‘in combat.’”
“Old Blood ‘n Guts Pelley we used to call him in the trenches,” another X user commented.
The backlash comes days after Pelley was fired by CBS News following a public clash with newly installed “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton amid a sweeping overhaul of the iconic newsmagazine.
Since his departure, Pelley has accused CBS News management of trying to inject “falsehoods and bias” into reporting and claimed the network had abandoned the journalistic standards that made “60 Minutes” one of television’s most influential news programs.
The Post has sought comment from CBS News and Pelley.
Pelley’s defenders noted that the veteran journalist spent decades reporting from some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine.
CBS News has long described him as a war correspondent, and the network’s own biographies credit him with reporting from Baghdad during the Gulf War, traveling with US troops during the Iraq invasion and spending weeks alongside Marines in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.
Over the course of his career, Pelley reported from ISIS front lines in northern Iraq, refugee camps in Darfur and mass grave sites in Bucha following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He earned a Peabody Award for his investigation into the killings of Iraqi civilians in Haditha.
Nevertheless, his comments drew an immediate rebuke from conservative commentator Mollie Hemingway, who accused the veteran journalist of inflating his role in war zones.
“Woke up this morning and remembered this propaganda clown falsely claimed to have served in combat in multiple theaters because he read TV lines near real soldiers,” Hemingway wrote on X.
“Low-rent Brian Williams behavior.”
Williams lost the “NBC Nightly News” anchor chair in 2015 after admitting he falsely claimed that a helicopter he was aboard in Iraq had been hit by enemy fire.
Soldiers who were actually on the aircraft contradicted him, saying Williams arrived later on a different helicopter.
NBC suspended Williams for six months without pay, saying he had “misrepresented events” and acted in a way that was “wrong and completely inappropriate” for someone in his position. He later returned to MSNBC but never regained his perch as NBC’s flagship nightly news anchor.