President Donald Trump has learned just how to trigger the woke activists and writers at legacy media outlets like the New York Times, as he showed in a brilliant Truth Social post in which he roasted the outlet and some of its high-profile writers in commentary so ferocious that it forced the outlet to respond in a hysterical statement published on social media.
As background, President Trump’s attack on the declining, distrusted outlet appears to have been sparked by a slew of articles published by the paper in recent weeks in which it has attacked him for everything from policy matters like his immigration agenda and pro-tariff trade actions to his relationship with SpaceX founder and Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk. However, as the president didn’t reference a specific article, it’s unclear what exactly set him off.
In any case, in his Sunday, March 23 post on Truth Social about the New York Times and its alleged “hit pieces” on him, slammed the paper as fake news and its writers as being of poor quality. Beginning by attacking NYT journalist Peter Baker, Trump said, “The Failing New York Times insists on using Liddle’ Peter Baker, a really bad writer and Obama biographer and sycophant, to write many of the long and boring Fake News hit pieces against me.”
Continuing, he slammed two female writers on the NYT staff as being exemplars of the sort of utter mediocrity in life and writing that the paper appears to prioritize. He said, on that point, “The only two people with less talent than Peter are his “wife,” the lovely Susan Glasser, and, of course, Maggot Hagerman, who may be the least talented writer in the entire stable of New York Times’ MEDIOCRITY!”
Then, concluding by turning from his complaints about specific writers to attacks on the paper’s editorial staff, the president wrote, “There’s something really wrong with these people, and their SICK, TRUMP DERANGED EDITORS. They did everything within their power to help rig the Election against me. How did that work out??? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
President Trump’s attacks were so powerful and roasted the woke paper so terribly that it felt the need to respond in a statement, which it did in a post on X (formerly Twitter), in which it quote tweeted an X version of Trump’s social media post and claimed he is incorrect about the paper’s quality of content and staff.
Beginning, the paper’s statement attacked the president for his comments about its staff members and claimed to be “honest” and “independent” journalism. It said, “Presidents from both parties have found reason to be unhappy with honest, independent journalism. Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman and their colleagues have an unrivaled record of covering this and prior administrations fully and fairly.”
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Concluding, the paper alleged that President Trump was trying to intimidate it with his post about how terrible it is, saying, “Intimidation tactics against Times reporters or their family members have never caused us to back down from our mission of holding powerful people to account, regardless of which party is in office.”
Commenters hammered the paper over the claim that it is independent as a paper. A representative commenter noted that nearly none of its staff is in any way conservative, writing, “Independent? What % of your staff identifies as Independent or Republican? What % of your articles on Trump are favorable? Don’t kid yourself…”
Watch Trump call out the NYT for one of its lies here: