Peter Baker

The front of Tuesday's New York Times tackled how various states plan to re-open for business over a surprisingly sunny banner headline, “States Set Course To Unlock Doors Of U.S. Commerce.” But the optimistic headline was overridden by the doubt-ridden tone of reporters Jack Healy, Manny Fernandez, and Peter Baker, teaming up to seed the ground to say “I told you so” if the states' plans…

A new anti-Trump angle on the coronavirus crisis made the front page of Tuesday’s New York Times, raising the silly charge of a financial conflict of interest, questioning Trump’s “motives” for pushing the drug. Excitable Times reporter Ken Vogel: "If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted coronavirus treatment, several companies stand to profit, some with shareholders & execs connected to…

Brian Williams is angry at “freaky” Fox News, deriding the network for thinking we’re all “stupid.” The MSNBC late night host, a man who lost his NBC job for lying, on Thursday night attacked Fox for not being honest in its past coverage of the Coronavirus. Talking to Michael Steele, Williams ranted, “The other attempt to tell us what we ourselves saw and heard or did not see and hear really has…

On Wednesday's Deadline: White House on MSNBC, fill-in host John Heilemann joined in on the pettiness of some journalists claiming that it is "racist" for President Donald Trump to accurately acknowledge that the coronavirus infections first appeared in China by calling it the "Chinese virus."

On the front of Monday’s New York Times, Peter Baker savored how the coronavirus had become a political headache for President Trump: “Twitter Pulpit Is No Match For Viral Foe.” Baker raises some defensible criticisms of some of Trump’s statements (while only briefly noting vital steps the President took over indignant liberal opposition). But Baker’s overall tone matched the feverish anti-Trump…

On New Day, CNN "senior political analyst" John Avlon offers the preposterous proposition that John Bolton's prospective testimony at the impeachment trial would be "the equivalent of Nixon's smoking gun tape." 

New York Times Peter Baker’s lead-story “news analysis” on Tuesday suggested revelations from an unpublished memoir by Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, could be a Watergate-like “smoking gun” -- or at least would in normal political times.  Baker eagerly and perhaps prematurely made his “smoking gun” case: “John Bolton’s Account Upends Trump’s Denials, but Will It…

The New York Times has gotten itself mired in more controversy and embarrassment of its own making while spending the last week desperately trying to put a negative spin on President Trump’s recent executive order to fight anti-Semitism on college campuses: "The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion..." Wrong, said people who actually read the…

On Sunday's Meet the Press, NBC reporter Heidi Pryzbyla sounded in sync with the Democrats on how tremendously weighty this impeachment is as a historical marker. President Trump violated "one of the Founders' primal fears," foreign interference in our elections. 

New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker got really excited over impeachment, making comparisons to John Dean and Watergate in his front-page “news analysis” of the hearings into “quid pro quo” allegations involving President Trump and Ukraine: “Democrats Detect Watergate Echo.” The headline to the “jump” page betrayed the same giddiness: “An Echo of Watergate As Sondland Remarks…

The New York Times has abruptly changed its tune on the “Deep State,” a name given to the entrenched bureaucracy supposedly determined to work via secret machinations and selective media leaks to bring down the Trump administration from within. As Trump and his Republican allies railed against the “Deep State,” the Times typically mocked the very idea as a phony conspiracy theory. The headline…

Peter Baker, New York Times White House correspondent, reviewed Tom Lobianco’s book “Piety and Power -- Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House,” but reserved his most hostile, pungent criticism for Pence’s boss: "How does a devoted evangelical Christian serve a foulmouthed, thrice-married vulgarian who boasts of grabbing women by their private parts and paid hush money to a porn star…

New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger’s “news analysis” on the font page basically took Iran’s side in the fraught geopolitical confrontation over the recent attacks on oil fields in Saudi Arabia, against U.S. President Trump and his “tirades and untruths.” The online headline suggested Trump could be lying about the Iranian threat: “Trump’s Challenge: Can His Word on Iran…

The New York Times’s lead story Monday morning was of course the mass murder of 29 people in two mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso. The second paragraph cast some blame at “angry words directed at immigrants...by right-wing pundits and President Trump.” The theme of Monday’s paper was to tie President Trump to the El Paso mass murderer. Peter Baker and Michael Shear’s “news analysis,” “In…