Post by John McQuaid / Redsky

John McQuaid • Feed

NYT uncritically publishes a bunch of clearly false attacks on the WSJ scoop. Strictly speaking, the NYT has no obligation to defend a competitor's reporting; but in a story on deranged MAGA-Epstein politics it could note that journalism is based on facts/verification www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/u...

Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base, said that the dynamics were shifting in part because the reporting in the story seemed “phony,” and because the paper decided not to show Mr. Trump a copy of the letter. “The Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base because of both content and process,” Mr. Bannon said. “Now we are united as Trump goes on offense — against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.”

Vice President JD Vance, who had previously called for the Epstein files to be released but said nothing amid the backlash to the Justice Department decision, bashed the Journal article. “Where is this letter?” Mr. Vance posted on X about an hour after the story published. “Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?” Even Elon Musk, who accused Mr. Trump in a now-deleted post on X of being named in the F.B.I.’s files earlier this year after the two had a falling out, said he did not believe the letter was real. “It really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say,” Mr. Musk wrote on the platform shortly after the story was published.

Laura Loomer, another one of Mr. Trump’s influential, far-right supporters, said in an interview that while many supporters remained frustrated by the lack of promised transparency in the Epstein case, the news story, which she believed “falsely accused” the president of writing the letter, “reunited” the MAGA movement.

jul 21, 2025, 2:41 pm • 95 22

Replies

Trump clearly, on occasion, has others type his less illiterate tweets. Has anyone properly tracked his use of language over the course of his accelerating cognitive decline?

jul 21, 2025, 2:53 pm • 1 0 • view

Imagine them quoting Bannon as if he ever says anything in good faith.

jul 21, 2025, 3:28 pm • 1 0 • view

Its funny how you think all major media are not now under the control of some oligarch intent on shaping our will to their desired political outcomes - which essentially translates to pilfering our wealth and diminishing our power. If the media is not independent then there’s no independent media

jul 21, 2025, 2:58 pm • 0 0 • view

therefore all of a media’s reporting is dependent on the ownership’s political leanings. Occam’s razor for media. They are no longer news orgs but simply PR or propaganda firms for rich people.

jul 21, 2025, 2:58 pm • 2 0 • view

The political press were eager to pronounce this story over and shift "the narrative" back to ... what? Precisely the opposite of the many "Biden in trouble" stories in which huge journalistic resources were expended to maintain that narrative

jul 22, 2025, 6:06 pm • 0 0 • view

This seemed more like collaboration than attack. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/u...

jul 21, 2025, 3:14 pm • 0 0 • view

If the NYT does not break a scoop into the public domain then the NYT will do everything possible to dismiss and degenerate the importance of such scoop. They did it many times before. Absolute arrogance.

jul 21, 2025, 6:23 pm • 1 0 • view