President tells federal agencies to cancel newspapers
Trump targets subscriptions to The Washington Post and the New York Times
The Trump administration plans to cancel subscriptions to The Washington Post and the New York Times held by federal agencies, the latest sign of presidential displeasure with coverage he deems unfair.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the Wall Street Journal that the White House would instruct agencies not to renew their subscriptions to the papers when they come up.
She characterized the decision as a cost-saving measure, telling the Journal that “hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be saved” by the cancellations.
Trump has made no secret of his dislike for both newspapers, dubbing the Times “the failing New York Times” and The Post “the Amazon Washington Post” in frequent broadsides against the two organizations.
Neither description is accurate: The Times’ parent company, the New York Times Co., is highly profitable and its subscription base has been growing smartly, particularly since Trump took office. The Post is owned by Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos, but is otherwise unaffiliated with Amazon itself.
Trump turned his animus toward the Times and Post up a notch in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday, saying, “We don’t even want (the Times) in the White House any more. We’re going to probably terminate that and The Washington Post. They’re fake.”
The White House has already canceled its subscriptions to the papers, according to several accounts.
The two papers have been among the leading news sources in investigating Trump and have covered the impeachment inquiry in the House that threatens his presidency.
The Times won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year for a series of stories detailing Trump’s inheritance from his father, and his family’s history of using questionable, possibly illegal strategies to avoid taxes.
The Times and The Post shared a Pulitzer in 2018 for documenting Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and its connections to Trump’s campaign and his transition team and administration. During the 2016 campaign, both papers aggressively covered allegations that he sexually assaulted women.
Trump responded earlier this year by saying in a tweet that the Pulitzer committee should withdraw the prize awarded to the papers.
It’s not clear how many subscriptions federal agencies have to the newspapers, and whether they are to the physical paper, to its digital equivalent or to both. Spokespeople for the Times and Post had no comment.