New York Times opinions editor Kathleen Kingsbury defended the newspaper against a firestorm of criticism over the timing of its lead editorial on Sunday, which declared Donald Trump unfit to lead” just hours after an attempted assassination of the former president.
Kingsbury claimed in an essay condemning political violence that the scathing op-ed was printed before Saturday’s failed assassination attempt on the Republican presidential front-runner.
“The print edition of Sunday Opinion is prepared days before it appears on newsstands, and the July 14 section was finalized and printed before the events of Saturday evening,” she wrote.
Kingsbury didn’t give further specifics on when the op-ed, titled “Donald Trump is unfit to lead,” was printed.
“There is no connection between our prior decision to run this editorial package in print and Saturdays incident — we would have changed our plans if we could have. (Indeed, we have held off on further online publication for the time being.)”
The front page of the Sunday op-ed section declared that Trump had failed the tests of leadership and betrayed America.
Inside, the Timesran a “retrospective” on Trumps record as president during his first term — urging voters to reject him as a candidate.
The retrospective, which amounted to a collection of essays, was first published online on Thursday and was already commissioned for reproduction in the weekends print edition, Kingsbury said.
The New York Times just published this about Trump today.
They are truly callous and despicable human beings. Not a shred of empathy. pic.twitter.com/zPmP4pj0bC
As the edition hit newsstands, the Times was ripped by conservatives who reacted in disbelief that it was published the day after the shooting.
BillionaireElon Musk, owner of social media platform X and a Trump supporter, blasted the newspaper masthead as truly callous and despicable human beings.
