The New York Times published two stories on the front page of its Oct. 30 print edition that blame President Donald Trump and his allies for the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
The second article, titled “Caravan Rhetoric Intersects With Deadly Hatred,” runs across three columns and suggests, again without evidence, that Trump’s comments about the migrant caravan in Mexico caused the synagogue massacre.
“There is clear overlap between the hatred and delusion that drove this lethal behavior and the paranoia and misinformation surrounding the caravan,” the writer, Jeremy Peters, asserts in summarizing the story.
A sub-headline that only appears in print states, “President Stokes Same Fears That Appear to Drive Attacks.”
The first exhibit the newspaper offers to back its claim is that “baseless claims that George Soros is financing the migrants ... carry a strong whiff of anti-Semitism” and “one of the most consistent themes of commentary on the caravan from the right.”
The New York Times offers no evidence for why the comments about Soros have “a strong whiff of anti-Semitism.” Trump has never publicly suggested that Soros is financing the caravan.
The false statement about Trump’s Twitter message is immediately followed, in the same paragraph, with a statement that “on Oct. 22, a pipe bomb was found at Mr. Soros’s house; the police have charged a Trump supporter, Cesar Sayoc, with mailing the bombs to Mr. Soros and other Democrats whom the president frequently criticizes.”
The New York Times incorrectly suggests, by positioning its false reporting about Trump’s Twitter message and the mail bomb attacks in the same paragraph, that Trump’s message provoked Sayoc.
Having provided its readers with no evidence for the serious insinuations made at the beginning of the article, the newspaper then pivots to Robert Bowers, the suspected synagogue murderer. According to the newspaper, Bowers “also pushed online conspiracy theories about the migrant caravan, in addition to anti-Semitic diatribes.”
The use of “also” accuses Trump and his allies of pushing “anti-Semitic diatribes” and “online conspiracy theories.” There is no evidence that either Trump or any prominent Republican has engaged in abusive speech or writing targeting the Jews, the definition of “anti-Semitic diatribes.” And as shown above, the newspaper never provided evidence to prove that Trump has “pushed online conspiracy theories.”
The article goes on to suggest that the views of the president and Republicans are rooted in “unfounded claims about the caravan’s origins and wildly fluctuating estimates of its size” made by “right-wing commentators, conspiracy theorists, and activist groups.” Contrary to that claim, Trump’s statements have been based on official sources.
The article is the latest in a narrative spun by The New York Times that Trump is an anti-Semite. The newspaper omits from its latest report that Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, married a conservative Jew and converted to Judaism. Trump also ended a trend of broken promises by prior presidents and moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, earning widespread praise.
Trump has fought back against false reporting by labeling the media which engage in the activity as “fake news” and referring to these outlets as “the enemy of the people.”
