Former Washington Post Editor: Trump Will ‘Pounce’ on Endorsement Flop

Marty Baron, the Washington Post’s former executive editor, issued a scathing rebuke over the weekend of the publication’s decision to kill a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. The retired editor, who ran the Post’s newsroom from 2013 to 2021, said he was “exceptionally disappointed” in owner Jeff Bezos and publisher Will Lewis’ choice to block the endorsement. “I think that anybody who owns a media organization needs to be willing to stand up to intense pressure,” he told the New Yorker. “Now I worry that there’s a sign of weakness. If Trump sees a sign of weakness, he’s going to pounce even harder in the future.” Shortly after the Post announced its new presidential endorsement policy on Friday, the former editor slammed the call as “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty” and that it represented “disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage” in a post on X. Abandoning the endorsement days before the election, according to Lewis, was to let readers decide for themselves and return to the publication’s “roots.” Baron, however, told the New Yorker: “You don’t make these decisions eleven days before the election without any deliberation with the staff, with the draft editorial sitting on the table.”