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 printed before Saturday’s failed assassination attempt on the Republican presidential frontrunner.
“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.
pulling its Sunday opinion on Trump’s candidacy. @elonmusk/X
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 Saturday’s 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 Times ran a “retrospective” on Trump’s record as president during his first term — urging voters to “reject” him as a candidate — and that it was therefore too late to make any changes.
The retrospective, which amounted to a collection of essays, was first published online on Thursday and was already commissioned for reproduction in the weekend’s print edition, Kingsbury said.
As the edition hit newsstands, The Times was ripped by conservatives who reacted in disbelief that it was published the day after the shooting.
Billionaire Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X and Trump supporter, blasted the newspaper masthead as “truly callous and despicable human beings.”
