A high ranking former editor at the Washington Post is claiming that the paper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, entered into a quid-pro-quo agreement with former President Donald Trump to kill the newspaper’s planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Longtime Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan, who quit after the non-endorsement on Friday, told The Daily Beast that Trump met with executives at Blue Origin – the space company owned and operated by Bezos – after the Post’s announcement, suggesting Bezos entered a deal with the possible next president.
“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do, and then met with the Blue Origin people,” he reportedly said.
“Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”
Despite the timing of the alleged meeting, Kagan provided no proof of a quid-pro-quo.
Reps for Trump, Bezos and The Washington Post did not immediately return requests for comment.
Kagan, who has been a longtime critic of Trump, said the alleged collusion between Bezos and Trump had “been in the works for some time” and will lead to “a lot of censorship” in the media as billionaire fold to Trump’s demands to line their own pockets, the outlet reported.
Kagan abruptly resigned from his longtime position after CEO William Lewis announced the paper would not be endorsing a presidential candidate in 2024, nor in any future races – breaking 36 years of tradition at the paper.
The newspaper published an article on Friday written by two reporters saying that editorial page staffers had already drafted an endorsement for Harris over Trump, and were awaiting approval from Lewis and Bezos before it was killed.
Bezos, the second-richest person in the world with a net worth valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $209 billion as of Friday, was a frequent target of Trump during his first term in office — mainly due to the Washington Post’s coverage of his administration.
Some WaPo insiders also believe the billionaire Amazon founder, who has not spoken publicly about the 2024 election, does not want to alienate the Republican challenger as he gains momentum to recapture the White House next month.
“This is what we have to look forward to,” Kagan said, according to The Daily Beast.
“All Trump has to do is threaten the corporate chiefs who run these organizations with real financial loss, and they will bend the knee.”
Friday’s decision follows the Los Angels Times, whose billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, also declined to issue an endorsement, leading to a flood of resignations from its editorial board.
The decision by the Post also resulted into 2,000 cancelled subscriptions within 24 hours, which one staffer said was “an unusually high number,” Semafor reported.
Furious high-profile staffers have also taken to social media blasting Friday’s announcement.
Amid fierce backlash that Bezos was responsible for the controversial decision, Lewis, the outlets publisher, denied those claims in a statement, stressing that he himself pulled the plug on the endorsement due to his opposition of presidential endorsements.
“He was not sent, did not read and did not opine on any draft. As Publisher, I do not believe in presidential endorsements. We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds,” Lewis said in a statement, according to The Daily Beast.
But Kagan claimed this “is just the beginning” and that “all the facts” lead to Bezos attempting to transform the longtime paper into an “anti-anti-Trump editorial slant,” according to the outlet.
“We now know what Bezos’ intention was, therefore we now know why he hired Will Lewis,” he said.
“We were the ones who were naïve in thinking that there was anything else going on here.”
Bezos, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, hired Lewis in part for his ability to get along with powerful conservative political figures, sources told NPR.