Jobless news veteran Scott Pelley broke down in tears as he claimed the hysterical tirade that got him fired from “60 Minutes” was a response to the “murders” of his “family” in a “Black Thursday massacre” at the show.

Pelley, 68, broke down several times during an interview with the New York Times as he discussed for the first time being axed from CBS News after nearly four decades at the network.

He conceded that he had been hyperbolic to accuse new network boss Bari Weiss of murdering “60 Minutes” — just to go even further, claiming it was the staff themselves that she murdered.

“It’s like your spouse being murdered,” he said at one point of the rejigging of staff with newcomers in to take charge at the show.

“No one saw the Black Thursday massacre coming,” Pelley told the paper of the network laying off senior staff, including executive producer Tanya Simon.

“The night before, Tanya and I were at the Emmy Awards, and we won two Emmys. Within hours, all of those people have been wiped out, and one-third of our correspondents have been fired,” he said.

“My colleagues and I have worked together 10, 20, 30 years. We travel together. We dine together. We go into literal combat together,” Pelley continued. 

“So, these bonds are pretty tight, and when somebody wipes out, murders, a large number of your family members, people are desperate for some explanation, and as you and I sit here today, there still has been none,” he said.

In addition to Simon, CBS had let go of correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, senior executive producer Draggan Mihailovich, veteran producer Guy Campanile, and staffer Matthew Polvoy.

Pelley said he found the email from new “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton informing staff of their departure “insulting.”

After comparing it to being “like your spouse being murdered,” he said, “I am not emotional about this because I have lost this job. I’ve done it for a long time. I’ve had the greatest experiences. But the people I leave behind, treated in this way? That breaks my heart, and it’s going to take me a long time to get over it.”

Pelley was fired after he raged against Weiss in a fiery June 2 meeting, claiming she was “brought in to kill” 60 Minutes, sources told The Post. Weiss was not present at the meeting — which irked the journalist.

He told The Times he typically tries to not be so reactionary, but was unable to help himself.

“I’m almost 69 years old, and if I’ve learned one thing in life, it is not to reflexively react when you feel that way. I thought, I’m going to give it a day. I’m too emotionally wrought up. I am going to say the wrong thing,” he said.

CBS News terminated Pelley after the confrontation, which he insisted “hadn’t occurred to” him could happen, despite the headline-grabbing attack at his bosses.

“Some reporter I turned out to be. I just didn’t connect the dots,” he said — while correctly noting that headlines on his interview would focus “the parts where I’m crying and say I’m a lunatic.”

During the acrimonious meeting, Pelley claimed that Weiss “has no qualifications for her job,” and said that the sweeping changes she had already made at the network were “catastrophic,” sources told The Post.

He also went directly after Bilton, a 49-year-old tech journalist, telling him he had “slender” qualifications for his new job, sources said.

Pelley added that Bilton “will never be welcome here” and asked him why he took the job under those circumstances, a source said.

“You are not going to intimidate me in front of this group of people,” Bilton shot back, according to a second source. “I want that to be clear.”

Pelley told the Times that he felt like Bilton was “being imposed on us as our new leader,” despite not knowing anything about “60 Minutes” or the people who worked there.

“I felt that somebody had to stand up not just for the broadcast but for the people. There are people in that room who go to war zones when they are pregnant,” he said, tearing up.

“Newsrooms are sort of like the military or the police or the beautiful people at the FDNY down the street. It is a life-threatening job in many instances. And to have people running CBS News, who don’t know that, have never felt that, and don’t understand it, is a tragedy.”

Bilton eventually stormed out of the meeting, sources said.

Pelley was informed he had been fired a short time later.

He thanked his colleagues in a statement afterwards.

“I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion — a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work,” he wrote.