New York Times Admits ‘Trump Is a Racist’ Narrative Is Phase II of the Coup against Him

Aug. 16, 2019 (EIRNS)—In an Aug. 12 “crisis” meeting with staff, New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet openly admits that his paper has now moved into phase two of the coup attempt against President Donald Trump, which for the next two years, leading into the 2020 presidential elections, will focus on “Trump the racist” narrative. Baquet’s statements were published today in the Washington Examiner, citing the transcript of the meeting leaked Aug. 15 by Slate magazine.

For the last two years, Baquet said, the Times was immersed in what he called “Chapter I of the story of Donald Trump.” That is, “did Donald Trump have untoward relations with the Russians and was there obstruction of justice?” The Times really worked that story, he said, even won Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage, and did a great job.

But, “then came the Mueller report” which failed to establish that the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia to fix the 2016 elections. In his Congressional testimony, July 24, “The day that Bob Mueller walked off that witness stand, two things happened,” Baquet said. “Our readers who want Donald Trump to go away suddenly thought, ‘Holy shit. Bob Mueller is not going to do it.’ And, Donald Trump got a little emboldened politically.”

So begins Chapter II. Now “the story changed,” Baquet explained, since the Russia conspiracy story “turned out to be false,” and Congressional Democrats pushing for obstruction charges are getting nowhere. “I think that we’ve got to change,” he intoned. The Times has to “write more deeply about the country, race and other divisions.” To the sometimes irate staff, Baquet described the saga behind the Times changing the headline on its coverage of Trump’s speech following the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, writing that the original headline—“Trump Urges Unity vs Racism”—was deemed by the “left” to be insufficiently anti-Trump.

People care too much, and they depend on the Times for the truth, Baquet insisted. “It’s a very scary time. How do we write about race in a thoughtful way? ... that, to me, is the vision for coverage.... But I think that’s what we’re going to have to do for the rest of the next two years.” The Examiner state that the headline controversy “was a preview of a new 2019-2020 New York Times. If Baquet follows through, the paper will spend the next two years, which just happen to be the run-up to the 2020 presidential elections, building the Trump-is-a-racist narrative.”