‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ co-host Charlie Hurt reacted Thursday to Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announcing a shift in direction for the paper's notoriously left-wing editorial pages. Bezos announced that the commentary would now focus on "personal liberties and free markets." Hurt, opinion editor of The Washington Times, said the move is the latest indication that the Amazon billionaire wants the paper to move away from "lunatic" resistance to President Trump.
WASHINGTON POST STAFFERS URGE OWNER JEFF BEZOS TO MEET IN SCATHING LETTER: ‘WE ARE DEEPLY ALARMED’
CHARLIE HURT: It sort of exposes the absurd lunacy, and The Washington Post has always been kind of a lunatic outfit over the past 20 years, but they really sort of lost it. I think it started in the Obama administration, where they just stopped questioning the administration. Then came 2016, when Donald Trump became president, they went just completely stark raving mad, and they didn't even pretend to try to actually cover the news. They just became this attack organization that, whatever Trump said, had to be bad. They lost all of their independence. So, I think it's really a reflection of that, but also a reflection of the realities of what's going on in newspapers. Obviously, the newspaper business is all but dead. … When I started in the business, we printed money. It was unlimited the amount of money we could make and that's no longer true.
Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai stand before the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times via AP, Pool)
I think that Jeff Bezos looks at the situation and says, look, if this editorial page isn't going to reflect a reasonable, sane position that I could defend, then I'm not going to keep bankrolling it to the tune that I have to right now, because it's not making the money that they're used to it making. The personal freedom thing … I think it'd be so interesting to go back and look at every editorial that they wrote about, say, COVID lockdowns and put it through the new lens of personal freedom. Man, every editorial these people wrote over the past 10 or 15 years, you would have to like, flip it over, and it would almost be the opposite.
Washington Post staffers sent a letter to owner Jeff Bezos urging him to address the paper's dire problems.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announced in an X post Wednesday, some major changes to the outlet's opinion page, including that the editorial page editor David Shipley would be stepping down as they introduce the changes.
"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others," Bezos wrote on X, announcing the decision.
The paper came under fire after Bezos stopped the editorial page from endorsing former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, prompting several staffers to flee the paper. Former columnist Jennifer Rubin and editor-at-large left amid the endorsement fallout.
Liberals also canceled their subscriptions to the Post after its non-endorsement decision.
"This is not about siding with any political party. This is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper. Doing this is a critical part of serving as a premier news publication across America and for all Americans," the statement continued.
"Bravo, @jeffbezos!" Elon Musk, wrote on X after reading the announcement.