A “CBS Evening News” cameraman collapsed during a live broadcast Wednesday night after suffering an apparent “medical emergency” offscreen.
The cameraman could be heard falling while “Evening News” host Tony Dokoupil was providing updates on the US-China summit from the network’s perch in Taiwan.
“You will hear a lot about the rise of a powerful new China — is he okay?” Dokoupil asked halfway through his closing while the rest of the stunned crew stayed silent.
“We’re gonna take a quick break. We have a medical emergency here,” Dokoupil said.
“We’re calling a doctor,” he added as crew members shuffled around offscreen.
The broadcast quickly pivoted to CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman, who closed out the evening from the New York City office’s anchor desk.
The CBS “Evening News” team assured that the cameraman is “okay and recovering” in an update shared just eight minutes after the broadcast ended.
Dokoupil is anchoring out of Taiwan’s capital for the duration of the US-China summit because the network failed to obtain a visa for Beijing.
The news anchor tried to justify their last-minute relocation while opening the show on Wednesday.
“If you zoom out from the state visit, you see one of the most important geopolitical stories of our time, and the big question tonight, will China, under Xi Jinping, try to take over Taiwan, risking war and economic catastrophe? This is what could happen here on the shores and in the streets if Xi decides to invade,” he said.
But, a CBS source told The Post that Dokoupil’s stint in Taiwan is a “cover your ass” move.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was almost iced out of China, too, under a prior sanction the country issued against him in 2020. The Chinese government used a “diplomatic workaround” — which boiled down to changing the spelling of his name — so it wouldn’t have to enforce its own ban.
The high-stakes meetings between President Trump, China’s President Xi Jinping, and a bulk of both leaders’ respective cabinets are expected to test their self-described “great relationship.”
Trump and his accompaniment of government officials and CEOs landed on Wednesday and will depart on Friday after two days of talks about artificial intelligence, the global economy, trade and nuclear weapons
