Trump touts layoffs at The Atlantic: ‘Tough time’
President TrumpDonald John TrumpMulvaney: ‘We’ve overreacted a little bit’ to coronavirus Former CBS News president: Most major cable news outlets ‘unrelentingly liberal’ in ‘fear and loathing’ of Trump An old man like me should be made more vulnerable to death by COVID-19 MORE late Tuesday touted recent layoffs at The Atlantic, slamming the magazine as “boring but very nasty” as part of his latest broadside against the media.
“Great News: The boring but very nasty magazine, The Atlantic, is rapidly failing, going down the tubes, and has just been forced to announce it is laying off at least 20% of its staff in order to limp into the future. This is a tough time to be in the Fake News Business!” Trump tweeted.
Great News: The boring but very nasty magazine, The Atlantic, is rapidly failing, going down the tubes, and has just been forced to announce it is laying off at least 20% of its staff in order to limp into the future. This is a tough time to be in the Fake News Business!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
The attack came less than a week after the magazine announced it was laying off almost 20 percent of its staff as a result of the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The 68 staffers will be cut from the events, sales and editorial departments.
“I want to tell our departing colleagues how deeply sorry I am,” David Bradley, chairman and owner of Atlantic Media, wrote in a memo. “If we saw any prospect that your jobs would return in a reset Atlantic, we would have found another way forward.”
The laid off workers will receive a severance package of a minimum 16 weeks’ salary pay and two weeks for each year of service beyond the first year.
Editors of the Atlantic fired back at Trump after his tweet, noting the magazine’s rise in subscribers.
“.@TheAtlantic‘s audience has never been bigger. Please join our hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and tens of millions of readers,” tweeted editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
.@TheAtlantic‘s audience has never been bigger. Please join our hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and tens of millions of readers. Subscribe here: https://t.co/BY9ptgETtRhttps://t.co/g0GNrGQFDp
— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) May 27, 2020
Trump also went after The New York Times late Tuesday, saying it should return the Pulitzer Prizes it won for its reporting on the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian election meddling.
The Failing @nytimes, winner of @PulitzerPrizes for its totally flawed coverage of the illegal Russia Witch Hunt, does its research as follows: Think of the absolute worst things you can say about Donald J. Trump, pretend there are sources, and just say it. RETURN THE PULITZERS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
The president has long had a combative relationship with the press, often accusing news coverage that casts his administration in an unflattering light as “fake news.”
