A newspaper that Donald Trump once described as his favorite published a blistering op-ed warning that the president’s administration is losing its grip on reality.
Team Trump “needs a reset, with an eye on what average Americans see,” the editorial board of the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post wrote on Tuesday.
The conservative tabloid, which was once reportedly the president’s first-read paper, said the administration “has hit a rough patch” marked by “bad polls and big worries about the November elections.”
“Team Trump is doing a lot of good, but overshadowing those achievements right now are some ugly optics and confusing-or-worse communications,” the editorial board wrote.
The publication has traditionally been sympathetic in its coverage of the 79-year-old president. But it has since turned its back on Trump, publishing fiery editorial pieces blasting his team’s handling of affairs.
The editorial pointed to the president dropping a lawsuit against his own IRS over the leak of his tax returns by a contractor during his first term in office. The case was withdrawn by Trump after Judge Kathleen Williams raised questions about whether the lawsuit involved a genuine legal dispute, given that Trump oversees the IRS as president.
The DOJ quietly issued an order that blocks the IRS from auditing the past tax returns of Trump, his family, company, and “related companies,” while also creating a $1.8 billion fund that can make secret payments to Jan. 6 rioters and other Trump allies who say they were wrongly prosecuted by the Biden administration.
“No two ways about it: The Trump Justice Department settlement of the Trump IRS lawsuit looks terrible‚” the editorial board wrote. “A blanket guarantee that the prez and his family will never ever face an IRS audit? A $1.8 billon ‘anti-weaponization fund,’ courtesy of the taxpayers, to be doled out to people who claim they were victimized by Biden-era “lawfare” — with no evident need to even show evidence?"
The paper compared the arrangement to former President Joe Biden’s controversial end-of-term pardons for members of his own family.
“This is on a par with Joe’s final-days blanket pardons for Hunter and the rest of the Biden clan,” the editorial said.
The Post also highlighted reports about Trump’s finances, writing that the president disclosed “3,600 stock trades with total values of $220 million to $750 million while he’s in office,” and that his personal fortune has reportedly “more than doubled since his second term began.”
It also pointed to “his sons’ extensive, highly lucrative crypto dealings with Gulf state Arabs and other foreigners.”
“None of it is a good look, however legal or above board it may in fact be,” the editorial board added.
The paper argued that the optics were especially damaging at a time when “regular” Americans face economic pressure linked to Trump’s deeply unpopular war with Iran.
Trump initially presented his military intervention in Iran as a regime-change operation, but it has since morphed into a rapidly expanding war that has led to the blockade of the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route, sending oil prices soaring.
“It comes at a time when regular Americans suffer spiking energy prices (and the ensuing economic troubles) caused by the Iran war,” the editorial board said.
“Somebody needs to get on top of this, with an eye not just on the White House speaking directly to the public’s concerns, but on how what it’s doing looks to average Americans," the Post’s editorial board concluded.
The Daily Beast contacted the White House for comment.
