President Donald Trump’s administration "has retreated from our country's historical role as a defender of the free press," allowing foreign powers to abuse journalists, according to The New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger.
Sulzberger, in speech given at Brown University on Monday and published by the newspaper Tuesday morning, claims that Trump has eroded "his own citizens' faith in the news organizations attempting to hold him accountable," which has "effectively given foreign leaders permission to do the same with their countries' journalists."
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Times and other news organizations as “fake news,” a phrase he has apparently used over 600 times on Twitter, according to Sulzberger, and frequently derides the Times in particular as a “failing” newspaper.
He notes that "Two years ago, we got a call from a United States government official warning us of the imminent arrest of a New York Times reporter based in Egypt named Declan Walsh.”
According to Sulzberger, these kinds of alerts are “actually fairly standard,” but this one “took a surprising and distressing turn. We learned the official was passing along this warning without the knowledge or permission of the Trump administration. Rather than trying to stop the Egyptian government or assist the reporter, the official believed, the Trump administration intended to sit on the information and let the arrest be carried out. The official feared being punished for even alerting us to the danger."
The Times notified diplomats in Walsh’s native country of Ireland, who had the reporter escorted to the airport.
"We hate to imagine what would have happened had that brave official not risked their career to alert us to the threat,” Sulzberger said.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.