The News You Need on Tuesday, June 9, 2026.
What's going on with the NYT and their coverage of Trump? UK PM Starmer takes on the tech bros, the Pope is in Madrid and Armenian PM Pashinyan wins election.
The New York Times and Donald Trump
Charles: Particularly in the last year, The New York Times has probably published more stories about the corruption and venality of Donald Trump than any other outlet.
From a fine summary by Steve Rattner a year ago (“Mr. Trump’s blatant transgressions have swamped those of any modern president and even those of his first term”) to an oral history of the destruciton of the Justice Department, the paper has aggressively covered the Trump corruption waterfront.
Last month even White House correspondent Peter Baker pointed out that “Trump has used the federal government to advance his own personal interests and those of his family and allies more expansively and openly than any past occupant of the White House. Any review of history would suggest that it is not even close.”
This excellent record only makes it all the more baffling when the paper completely fails to convey the insanity the president displays in real time.
Sunday’s example was its appallingly anodyne account of Trump’s appearance on Meet the Press. Around the 37th minute of his interview with Kirsten Welker, Trump had a full meltdown, but the NYT account never gave the slightest hint of that. When Welker pointed out that 170 people had pled guilty to assaulting police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump said there had been “FBI agents ushering them into the building.”
The NYT omitted every one his most outrageous quotes, and never suggested the insanity of his performance.
To get that, you had to read The Guardian:
When Welker asked the president for any evidence on the California gubernatorial race being fraudulent, he also accused the veteran reporter of being “crooked”.
“They’re crooked, just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And Meet the Press is crooked,” said Trump.
Welker then defended herself and tried to ask additional questions, with Trump replying: “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged.”
Trump then brought up previously repeated false claims that he won the 2020 US presidential election.
When Welker later tried to ask additional questions, Trump continued to assert that NBC was “crooked” and ended the interview. “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” said Trump, taking off his microphone. “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
Watch as Trump cracks under pressure from Welker:
Starmer Takes on the Tech Bros
The Independent
Scott: The tech bros are determined to take down Sir Keir Starmer and his government.
How? Any pretext will do.
For the last weeks, they have been mobilizing their resources and stoking violence and anger against Starmer, using whatever comes to hand. A violent incident in which a mentally ill Sikh kills an 18-year old white man in Hampshire, for instance. But this is the real reason: Starmer is—like his counterparts in France—acting on public outrage over Elon Musk’s decision to flood European social media with pornography.
Today he has issued a 3-month ultimatum: They need to self-regulate the situation in 90-days or the penalties will be put in place, and they will (as in France) be criminal in nature.
Don’t expect to read or hear about this in US media. They’ll just be reporting on how those damned Europeans are encroaching on free-speech rights, which is how the tech bros have decided to code this whole controversy.
Starmer has handed tech companies a three-month ultimatum to introduce device controls to prevent children sending, receiving, or viewing nude images.
Firms such as Apple and Google will face legislation forcing them to activate the tech if they do not comply with the changes by September, the prime minister has warned.
In a speech at London Tech Week, Starmer declared that “standing by is not an option”, adding that “the pace of change cannot be an excuse for harm”.
But the prime minister has been urged to go “much further” on the measures, as he was criticised by some political opponents who called his delay in introducing the ban until a leadership contest was on the horizon “desperately sad”.
“One issue is the ability for children with phones to send and receive nude images,” Starmer said on Monday. “For too long, people have been told that is simply the price of modern tech, that nothing can be done, that government is powerless, that parents just have to accept it.
“I reject that completely, because tech should adapt to the needs of society, not the other way around.”
He added: “That is why today I am calling on tech companies operating in this country to introduce device controls that prevent children from sending and receiving sexually explicit images.
Meanwhile French prosecutors say they have secured internal documents showing that Musk opted to enable the pornography flood because it would bolster the profits of his social media operation.
Scott Horton and Charles Kaiser Are Veteran Authors and Journalists.
Charles: I came to this originally as a metro reporter for the New York Times where I covered all the city beats, including real estate where I met one Donald Trump in the 1970s. Then I was a media reporter at the Wall Street Journal after which I got into the business we’re still in as the press critic at Newsweek.
Since then, I’ve written books about the 1960s, about gay life in the United States since 1940 and about a family in the French resistance who I’ve known all my life.
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