new york times

'Uninterested' Trump has outsourced the presidency to 'unaccountable' advisors: analysis

Despite being given powers well beyond previous presidents, President Donald Trump has largely outsourced his duties to advisors who are actually running the White House's day-to-day operations, according to a recent analysis.

In a Wednesday op-ed for the New York Times, columnist Jamelle Bouie argued that Trump is mostly "uninterested in anyone except his most devoted fans, and would rather collect gifts from foreign businessmen than take the reins of his administration." Bouie pointed to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles' recent bombshell profile in Vanity Fair, in which she maintained that despite occupying America's highest office, Trump "doesn't know the details" of the "smallish agencies" that his administration decimated earlier this year.

"The president doesn’t know and never will," Wiles said.

Despite Trump being "practically AWOL," Bouie pointed out that he is president at a time when the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has dramatically expanded the powers of the executive branch under the philosophy of "unitary executive theory." Under that system, Trump himself is vested with all the powers of the executive branch as outlined in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which SCOTUS' conservative majority has clarified includes the ability to fire executive branch employees at will — even those at independent agencies.

However, Bouie asserted that the caveat of SCOTUS' new broad definitions of executive power is that Trump is mostly idle, "rarely meets with ordinary Americans" and "is shuttled from one Trump resort to another to play golf and hold court with donors, supporters and hangers-on." He added that SCOTUS' empowering of Trump to act beyond traditional checks and balances has, by default, meant that his cadre of advisors has free reign to run the White House as they see fit.

"[T]here is something ironic at work in this effort to concentrate executive power in the name of constitutional fidelity. It is being done on behalf of a president who is mostly missing from the business of government," Bouie wrote. "The unitary executive lacks an executive. And the president we have isn’t unitary. He has given his newfound power away to a small set of virtually unaccountable advisers, insulated from public outcry and indifferent to public opinion."

These advisors include Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, who Bouie characterized as the "de facto shadow president for domestic affairs," and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who the Times columnist called the "shadow president for internal security." Bouie noted that the work of foreign policy — which has always traditionally been seen solely as the president's wheelhouse — is largely being handled by Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Bouie quoted former President John F. Kennedy, who wrote in the foreword of his advisor Ted Sorensen's 1963 book Decision Making in the White House that the “secret of the presidential enterprise is to be found in an examination of the way presidential choices are made."

"What do we make of a president who chooses not to make these choices?" Bouie wrote.

Click here to read Bouie's New York Times column in full (subscription required).

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Conservative declares Trump is 'the most loathsome being ever to occupy the White House'

Conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens is a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, though he took his criticism a step further after the president insulted the late actor-director Rob Reiner.

In a Tuesday column, Stephens castigated the commander-in-chief and lamented having to write about Trump, who he called a "petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man." He argued that dedicating a column to him was necessary as Trump was, in his words, "the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House."

Stephens referred to Trump as America's "ogre in chief" and reminded readers that he criticized Reiner as "deranged" even after he was found dead in his home after allegedly being fatally stabbed by his son. He posted Trump's Truth Social post in its entirety, saying that it "captures the combination of preposterous grandiosity, obsessive self-regard and gratuitous spite." And he argued that Trump's disrespect of a beloved cultural icon "is where history will record that the deepest damage by the Trump presidency was done."

"Right now, in every grotesque social media post; in every cabinet meeting devoted, North Korea-like, to adulating him; in every executive-order-signing ceremony intended to make him appear like a Chinese emperor; in every fawning reference to all the peace he’s supposedly brought the world; in every Neronic enlargement of the White House’s East Wing ... in all this and more, our standards as a nation are being debased, our manners barbarized," he added.

Stephens also differentiated Trump from other conservatives who put politics aside to mourn the Reiners, as actor James Woods did in a recent Fox News interview. He noted that Woods called Reiner "a great patriot," and that while they had different visions of how America could succeed, they both shared a love for country and a mutual respect for each other as Americans.

"Good people and good nations do not stomp on the grief of others. Politics is meant to end at the graveside. That’s not just some social nicety," Stephens wrote. "It’s a foundational taboo that any civilized society must enforce to prevent transient personal differences from becoming generational blood feuds."

The conservative columnist also observed that Trump's post came on the heels of a shooting at Brown University that killed two people, and an attack against Australia's Jewish community on the first day of Hannukah that left 15 people dead. Stephens asserted that Trump's second term was not a "golden age," but rather "a country that feels like a train coming off the rails, led by a driver whose own derangement was again laid bare in that contemptible assault on the Reiners, may their memories be for a blessing."

Click here to read Stephens' full column (subscription required).

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Newsom calls out CEOs to their faces for 'groveling' to Trump

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) spent a significant portion of a recent address criticizing members of his audience for their obeisance to President Donald Trump.

Politico reported Wednesday that the two-term governor — who is presumed to run for the presidency in 2028 — told audience members at the New York Times DealBook Summit that they were complicit in some of the Trump administration's worst abuses. At one point he suggested they should buy the kneepads with Trump's signature he's selling on his website, given their pattern of "groveling to Trump’s needs."

"Some of you may need to buy them in bulk," Newsom added.

The outlet reported that Newsom's segment was sandwiched between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Turning Point CEO Erika Kirk (wife of slain MAGA activist Charlie Kirk), and he spent much of it attacking the Trump administration. He specifically called out the administration's deployment of federal agents ahead of the campaign kickoff for the Prop 50 initiative (which was passed in November as a means of countering Republican gerrymandering efforts in Texas and elsewhere).

“Some of you are probably fine with it,” Newsom told the audience. “A lot of people figured it out. They know the game, state capitalism, crony capitalism, the great grift. A lot of you are doing extraordinarily well.”

Politico reported that Newsom's speech was met not with boos, but with muted applause. Two people in the audience described the California governor as a younger version of President Joe Biden. Another said he was impressed by Newsom's presentation.

According to the New York Times, the DealBook Summit's attendees typically include "high-level executives, leaders and entrepreneurs from the worlds of financial services, technology, consumer goods, private investment, venture capital, banking, media, public relations, policy, government, academia and more."

Click here to read Politico's report in its entirety.

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'Give to him — or else': Trump slammed for forcing wealthy to 'pay tribute'

The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are typically known for philanthropic acts. However, one New York Times contributor is arguing that President Donald Trump has instead made "reverse philanthropy" one of the defining traits of his administration.

In a Thursday op-ed for the Times, writer Molly Jong-Fast defined "reverse philanthropy" as an act in which Trump expects the wealthiest to "give to him — or else." She then named multiple examples of Trump soliciting donations for both his second inauguration and now his $300 million ballroom, which will be replacing what used to be the East Wing of the White House.

"Instead of the richest helping the neediest, they pay tribute to the greediest. Remember the dozens of people and corporations who gave over a million dollars each to his inauguration? Mr. Trump then went to five crypto firms and eight tech companies, including some that helped fund the inauguration, for help building his ballroom. Which will itself be a place to gather fellow oligarchs and others who seek Mr. Trump’s favor," she wrote. "Think endless lavish fund-raising galas in honor of one recipient who will never truly be satisfied."

Jong-Fast — the daughter of author Erica Jong — lamented that Trump has made "rich people worse" by fostering a culture of "selfishness" among the richest members of American society. She contrasted arts patron Agnes Gund (noting that the Times called her "the last good rich person") with billionaires like Sam Bankman-Fried — who is in prison for fraud — and Elon Musk, who scored a one out of five on Forbes' 2023 philanthropy scale.

The Times contributor referenced a biennial survey conducted by Bank of America and the Indiana University school of philanthropy, which asks wealthy respondents about their altruism habits. In the 2024 poll, 45 percent of those surveyed said that they weren't giving as much to charity in order to "take care of family needs." That's a significant increase from the 2015 survey, when only 27 percent of affluent respondents listing that as their primary reason for not donating to charity.

"Trump sets the tone. His cabinet is very rich, and unlikely to be that concerned, or at least affected, by the true cost of Thanksgiving this year," Jong-Fast wrote. "Perhaps it fits with the broader picture: The rich are the richest they have ever been, and they seem mostly to be focused on … keeping their money."

"Philanthropy was always, on some level, a way for people with too much to feel better about that fact, or maybe about how they came to have all that loot in the first place," she added. "They need to be reminded of that. And of what they should be grateful for: this country, and its hardworking nonbillionaires trying to survive."

Click here to read Jong-Fast's op-ed in the New York Times.

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Speaker 'barely holding it together' and 'crushed by his workload': NYT

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) made several revealing admissions about the stressful and chaotic nature of his job, according to a recent New York Times report.

The Times' Annie Karni wrote in a Wednesday article that Johnson turned what was meant to be an easy interview with a friendly podcast host into a spotlight on how he's handling the pressure of being second in the presidential line of succession. While sitting alongside his wife in an appearance on the Katie Miller Pod (hosted by the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller), Karni observed that Johnson gave unusually detailed answers to softball questions.

"Sitting together in the speaker’s office, the Johnsons appear perfectly practiced and coifed. Ms. Johnson’s bright orange lipstick exactly matched her suit and her shoes. The two know how to do this; they used to co-host a podcast about religion and politics," Karni wrote. "But they both revealed in their conversation with Ms. Miller that they are barely holding it together."

The speaker casually mentioned that he hadn't had a vacation or a day off "in two years, literally." He told Miller that "literally 100,000 people have my cellphone number" and that he is constantly worried about missing important calls and text messages because his phone is constantly ringing — and that most of his typical calls are emergencies. The Johnsons sold their home in Shreveport, Louisiana as the effort of caretaking and maintenance on the property became too much for them to handle, and that he spent his last Christmas "taking calls from members with their drama."

"[E]ven on this forgiving platform, Mr. Johnson presented himself as a man toiling to fulfill his duties at a moment when his weak grip on his conference appears to be slipping even further," Karni wrote. "... [T]he throughline was Mr. Johnson’s sense of being crushed by his workload and the demands of his job managing an unruly Republican majority."

Even at home, Johnson alluded to a hectic and topsy-turvy lifestyle, which Karni described as "pure chaos." The Times journalist opined that while some in Washington thrive in high-pressure environments, the speaker "appeared to be burdened by it all"

“We’re in triage every day, and every day is different. There’s no pattern or schedule,” Johnson told Miller. “We’re kind of in survival mode right now. We order in food because we just don’t have the time or luxury of cooking.”

Click here to read Karni's full article in the New York Times (subscription required).

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Trump displaying signs of 'fatigue' with shorter days and fewer public appearances: NYT

Just 10 months into his second term, President Donald Trump is already exhibiting multiple signs of "fatigue," according to the New York Times.

The Times reported in a Tuesday article that the president's behavior has prompted various experts to question whether the administration is being forthcoming about Trump's health, given that he is the oldest person to be ever be elected president (beating out former President Joe Biden by roughly five months). George Washington University political historian Matthew Dallek told the Times that the White House is withholding information about Trump's health in ways similar to those of the Biden White House.

“The people around him are similar to Biden’s aides,” Dallek said. “They would talk as if we’re living in a little bit of a fantasy world. Trump, in that way, with the help of his aides and his doctors have created this fiction about his health to hide the hard, cold truth that he is 79 and one of the oldest people to ever occupy the Oval Office.”

According to the Times, Trump's "battery shows signs of wear" during some public appearances, including one from November in which he was seen dozing off during an Oval Office event. Trump appeared to drift in and out of sleep until someone at the event collapsed and required medical attention.

Trump's public appearances themselves have also been cut short compared to his first term. The paper cited Capitol Hill outlet Roll Call's presidential calendar tracker and found that the president typically doesn't attend official events until after 12 PM, whereas his average day started around 10:30 AM during his first term.

"The number of Mr. Trump’s total official appearances has decreased by 39 percent," the Times reported. "In 2017, Mr. Trump held 1,688 official events between Jan. 20 and Nov. 25 of that year. For that same time period this year, Mr. Trump has appeared in 1,029 official events."

Trump's schedule is noticeably less demanding than that of his predecessors during their respective second terms. The paper found that while former President Barack Obama's days typically started around 10 AM, he maintained a regular daily schedule through 7 PM, when he had dinner with his family. Former President George W. Bush was usually in the Oval Office by 6:45 AM each day, and both Bush and Obama also made time in their schedules for regular exercise, while Trump does not.

Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).

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Why Americans refused to believe Dick Cheney about Trump

Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney — who passed away on Monday night at the age of 84 — spent his final year warning Americans about President Donald Trump and unsuccessfully campaigning against him. But one author says Cheney's legacy made it impossible for his message to reach Americans.

In a Tuesday op-ed for the New York Times, Ron Suskind — who wrote "The One Percent Doctrine" about the George W. Bush administration — argued that Cheney set an example of what runaway executive power looked like, making his criticisms of Trump during the 2024 election ring hollow. He likened the Trump presidency to the Bush administration's War on Terror — "without the war."

"[Cheney] wrote a playbook of how to exercise executive authority beyond constitutional boundaries and the rule of law," Suskind wrote. "Donald Trump has added pages and is working on a sequel."

According to Suskind, Cheney blazed the trail that Trump later walked by plowing ahead with the controversial invasion of Iraq, imposition of mass surveillance infrastructure and declaration of emergencies to circumvent traditional means of implementing policy. The author also pointed out that Cheney bulldozed his way through Republicans not on board with his vision, like former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman. And like Trump, Cheney also pursued costly tax cuts that were overwhelmingly beneficial to the very wealthy.

"Disastrous as those all actions were, Mr. Trump has undertaken even more significant expansions of power and illegality, often under even more dubious claims of emergency," Suskind wrote. "... Mr. Cheney made it possible."

Suskind pointed out that Cheney's red line for Trump was the January 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol. And he observed that Cheney's eventual endorsement of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election was a "remarkable development." However, by then, he argued that "it was too late" for him to persuade anyone, since he "had done as much as anyone in history to undermine Americans’ trust in their institutions and leaders."

"A false case for war will do that. So will the worst financial crash in 80 years, whose consequences middle- and working-class Americans were left to suffer unblunted," Suskind wrote. "Many of them went on to join Mr. Trump’s army of grievance and anger."

"For all his belatedly discovered democratic principles, Mr. Cheney helped to create the world that Mr. Trump inhabits," he added. "The contempt he showed for any constraints on his power paved the way for Mr. Trump and the contempt he now shows for everything but his own naked interest."

Click here to read Suskind's full New York Times op-ed (subscription required).

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'Stuff of totalitarian regimes': Author warns Trump building 'his own paramilitary force'

One journalist and author said Americans have reason to fear their country is rapidly slipping into authoritarianism, given President Donald Trump's approach to deploying the National Guard to double as a law enforcement entity across the country.

During a Wednesday podcast episode hosted by New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, longtime journalist and author Radley Balko — who covers policing in the United States — said that Trump is showing several signs that he aims to have a state-sponsored security force exclusively loyal to him to use against his political opponents. Klein began the episode by saying that Trump was "creating crisis and disorder so he can build what he has wanted to build: an authoritarian state, a military or a paramilitary that answers only to him — that puts him in total control."

"What I think we are seeing right now is Trump is attempting to build his own paramilitary force," Balko told Klein. "They want people whose first and ultimate loyalty in this job is going to be to the president."

Balko opined that the ongoing military occupation of Washington D.C. — which he justified by insisting that crime in the capital city necessitated a heavy federal presence – was a precursor to Trump sending military to other cities across the U.S. in Democratic-run states like Baltimore, Maryland, Chicago, Illinois and Oakland, California. And he observed that when analyzing crime data in the cities Trump has identified, the justification falls apart.

"Incidentally, all three cities have seen dramatic drops in crime. Baltimore is in, I think, a 30- or 40-year low in violent crime. Oakland has dropped pretty dramatically. Chicago has dropped a little bit," Balko said. "...This isn’t about federalism or keeping the nation’s capital safe. It’s not about immigration enforcement. These are all very blue cities. They’re cities with large Black populations, with Black political leadership and they’re cities that Trump has been disparaging for his entire political career."

Balko told Klein that Trump's reliance on the military to carry out law enforcement is a common tool among authoritarian regimes around the world, and that he personally didn't predict that an American president would ever exhibit similar behavior on American soil. He also argued that the politicization of the military was a dark omen for Americans in the near future.

"It’s hard to describe what is actually going on right now without sounding crazy: The idea that the president is going to deploy the military into cities and states that didn’t vote for him because he’s angry at them for that — or he is going to stop sending them disaster relief because they didn’t vote for them — that is clearly the stuff of totalitarian regimes," he said.

Click here to read the full transcript of Klein's interview with Balko in the New York Times (subscription required).

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'Highly damaging': How Trump's latest firing is 'destructive' to his own administration

President Donald Trump’s abrupt dismissal of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, immediately after the release of a weak July jobs report, has prompted fierce backlash from economists, former career civil servants and democracy advocates.

In an editorial published Tuesday, The New York Times Editorial Board condemned Trump’s actions as “highly damaging,” arguing that firing the country’s top labor statistician for issuing data that conflicted with his agenda undermines the integrity of federal information and fuels public distrust.

The jobs report, which showed only 73,000 new positions added in July and included substantial downward revisions to May and June figures, was swiftly labeled “rigged” by Trump — a claim widely dismissed by experts as baseless.

Former Bureau chiefs and statisticians stressed that McEntarfer had no ability to alter the data, which is compiled by a large, nonpartisan staff following strict protocols.

In its editorial, the NYT wrote: "A more grounded president might have considered whether the data raised questions about his agenda. Mr. Trump characteristically insisted that the questions were about the data."

"But there is no doubt that Mr. Trump’s actions will cast a shadow over the rest of the government that he leads. Public servants must now do their work while fearing that they may be fired merely for producing information that displeases the president. Mr. Trump is also making it harder for the government to obtain information, as people and businesses asked to respond to questions now have reason to doubt whether the answers will be accurately reported," according to NYT.

"One of Mr. Trump’s most powerful political techniques is to seize on problems as the justification for his destructive policies. There is a long history of politicians grumbling about the inaccuracy of the monthly government jobs report because it is usually inaccurate. It’s a first estimate, a rough cut, a best guess that is typically published on the first Friday of the following month. The agency updates that initial estimate as it obtains more and more accurate information; since 1979, when the agency started quantifying its mistakes, the first guess has been off by an average of 57,000 jobs. That’s a lot," the piece added.

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'You are the greatest!' NYT publishes message Trump wrote to Epstein — and a new photo

The New York Times on Thursday confirmed the Wall Street Journal's previous reporting that President Donald Trump contributed to a 50th birthday album for Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 (several years before Epstein's first conviction). The paper also published a message Trump wrote to his longtime friend in a book.

According to the Times' David Enrich, Steve Eder, Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, a list of contributors to the birthday album include former Victoria's Secret owner Leslie H. Wexner, former Bear Stearns chairman and CEO Alan Greenberg and physicist Murray Gell-Mann in addition to Trump (Greenberg and Gell-Mann died in 2014 and 2019, respectively). Epstein's longtime partner and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell wrote a handwritten introductory letter to Epstein to accompany the album.

"Jeffrey, The idea behind the book was simply to gather stories and old photographs to jog your memory about places people and different events. Some of the letters will definitely achieve their intended goal — some well ... you will have to read them to see for yourself," she wrote. "I know you will enjoy looking through the book, and I hope you will derive as much pleasure looking through it as I did putting it together for you. Happy happy birthday, Love Ghislaine."

In addition to the note Trump wrote to Epstein in the album, the Times found another complimentary message Trump inscribed in a copy of his book "Trump: The Art of the Comeback." In the front jacket, Trump wrote: "Jeff — you are the greatest!" He signed the message "Donald," and dated it in October of 1997.

The Times also published a previously unseen photo in which Trump is seen posing with both Epstein and the late soul and funk singer James Brown. While the Times reported it had no knowledge of the photo's context, the paper reported that Brown was a regular performer at the Trump Taj Mahal hotel and casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which has since closed.

Trump has not yet directly responded to the Times' report, though he appeared to reference it in a Thursday night Truth Social post. The president accused Democrats of going "absolutely CRAZY" and of carrying out a "CON JOB" by talking about Epstein, which Trump insisted was a "HOAX."

"The Radical Left Democrats are doing everything in their power to distract and obfuscate from our GREAT six months of service to America, results of which many are saying is the BEST six months in Presidential history," Trump wrote. "They have gone absolutely CRAZY, and are playing another Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax but, this time, under the guise of what we will call the Jeffrey Epstein SCAM. As things are revealed and, I hope will take place quickly, you will see that it is yet another Democrat CON JOB. Hopefully, the Grand Jury Files will put an end to this HOAX."

Click here to read the Times' full article (subscription required).

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This question Trump always asks 'appears to play an outsize role in his decisions': NYT

President Donald Trump's mercurial nature could be best explained by one question he constantly asks everyone in his orbit. And how he governs over the remainder of his second term may very well be up to how his favorite question gets answered at any given time.

The New York Times' Carlos Lozada wrote Friday on Trump's propensity to gauge feedback from those in his inner circle by asking: "How's it playing?" According to Lozada, that was the first question Trump asked deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino while being treated at a Pennsylvania hospital following an attempt on his life in July of 2024. And it was the top question after Israel carried out its first strikes on Iranian nuclear sites earlier this month.

"There is nothing wrong with a president gauging public reaction to or support for administration policies or actions. The people are his constituents, after all," Lozada wrote. "But in the case of Trump, 'How’s it playing?' appears to play an outsize role in his decisions. External approval is not just a means to pursue a policy he deems wise or worthy; the approval is what makes the policy wise or worthy."

In the op-ed, Lozada observed that Trump became enraged at media outlets' coverage of a recent Pentagon report that suggested the airstrikes he ordered on Iran last weekend were less effective than he initially proclaimed. That report assessed that the Iranian nuclear program may have only been set back by three to six months, whereas Trump said following the strikes that the three sites he targeted had been "obliterated." The president recently threatened to sue the New York Times unless it apologized and issued a retraction, though the paper's attorney refused and told Trump's attorney that "no apology will be forthcoming."

Lozada cited a passage from author Michael Wolff's book "All or Nothing," in which Trump frequently reminded advisors that "our legal strategy is our media strategy, our media strategy is our legal strategy." The Times columnist opined that Trump using lens of public opinion as the top metric to consider how to make foreign policy and military decisions posed a significant national security threat.

To underscore this point, Lozada recalled a moment from 2015, in which then-candidate Trump told NBC's Chuck Todd that he watched "the shows" as his primary means of getting military advice. Lozada also quoted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said in a 2015 Fox News interview as the head of the organization Concerned Veterans for America that Trump's interview with Todd concerned him, arguing that TV shows didn't suffice as a good source of information about how to conduct the military.

“You wouldn’t want a top-tier presidential candidate getting all of their military advice from watching ‘Meet the Press.’ There’s a lot more nuance, there’s a lot more detail,” Hegseth said at the time. “At the end of the day, foreign policy and national security is not about TV shows.”

Click here to read Lozada's full op-ed in the Times (subscription required).

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