The New York Times regurgitates yet another Trump lie
In a report published Friday, The New York Times regurgitated President Donald Trump’s claim that he is backing away from supporting increased taxes on the wealthy.
Headlined “Trump Softens on Raising Taxes on the Rich, Saying G.O.P. Probably Shouldn’t,” the story was written by known Trump apologist Maggie Haberman. Haberman has spent the last few years as the paper’s go-to person for Trump gossip and spin, which resulted in a lucrative book deal.
The bulk of the article restated a post by Trump on his TruthSocial network.
“The problem with even a “TINY” tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, “Read my lips,” the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election,” Trump wrote.
The post was in response to a Thursday report alleging that Trump spoke to House Speaker Mike Johnson and argued in favor of a tax increase on the rich.
But Trump’s track record on tax policy is overwhelmingly in favor of tax cuts that benefit the uber-rich and large corporations. He has campaigned on such policies since he first entered politics in 2015 and those ideas were the centerpiece of his legislative agenda when he was in office in 2017. Despite the Times’ decision to reprint Trump’s claim that he would “graciously accept” higher taxes, there isn’t anything in his background supporting the notion that he would now back a tax hike on the rich.
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By contrast, his Democratic political rivals like former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris have supported and proposed legislation that would raise taxes on the very wealthy. Such proposals have been steadfastly opposed by Trump and his Republican allies in Congress.
The last time Trump passed major tax legislation was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress promised that the bill would boost household income for the middle class and spark economic growth. It did neither.
The package included tax cuts that were “highly skewed” in favor of the super-rich, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted in a 2024 report on the law. The group also noted that the law “benefited high-income households far more than households with low and moderate incomes,” creating a “windfall” for the wealthy while eroding the revenue base the government relies on.
Congressional Republicans are currently in the process of pushing more tax legislation that would double down on the failures of Trump’s old law. The bill, called “One Big Beautiful Bill” because that’s what Trump demanded his priorities be labeled, cuts spending on programs like Medicaid in exchange for tax breaks that benefit rich people.
The Congressional Budget Office reported on Friday that over 5.5 million people will lose health care coverage if Republican plans to roll back Medicaid expansion become law under the so-called beautiful bill that is being considered.
Despite this information and Trump’s track record on taxes, The New York Times chose once again to amplify Republican spin—while hiding the truth from its readers.