Distressed columnist quits The Washington Post in a fury over Jeff Bezos’ friendship with Trump

A Washington Post columnist known for her anti-Trump screeds has quit her job at the paper after 14 years, claiming that owner Jeff Bezos has become too chummy with the soon-to-be president. 

Notoriously liberal columnist Jennifer Rubin joins a growing list of former colleagues who have fled the publication in recent months.

‘I fear that things are going from bad to worse at The Post,’ Rubin told CNN, slamming billionaire Bezos for his leadership decisions. 

‘The Post, along with most mainstream news outlets, has failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press.’

She denounced Bezos’ decision to block The Post’s editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris, a decision that cost the outlet 250,000 subscribers. 

The Post veteran was also outraged by Amazon – which is owned by Bezos – donating $1 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund. 

The final straw for Rubin was the outlet’s refusal to publish a satirical cartoon by Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes.

The controversial drawing depicted Bezos, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI chief Sam Altman kneeling with bags of money in front of a large statue of Trump. 

Telnaes, who had been with The Post since 2008, resigned after the incident. 

The Post’s opinion editor, David Shipley, defended his decision to get rid of the cartoon in an internal memo, CNN reported. 

He reportedly said it was a ‘sound editorial decision’ because other pieces had already referred to Trump and Bezos’ relationship and publishing more content of this nature seemed like ‘overkill.’   

Rubin is teaming up with former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen to launch a news organization called The Contrarian. 

‘Our goal is to combat, with every fiber of our being, the authoritarian threat that we face,’ she told CNN. 

Rubin will serve as editor-in-chief of the publication and Eisen will be the publisher. 

Several other prominent Post reporters have turned their backs on the outlet because of the endorsement debacle and other tensions. 

Reporters Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker left The Post for the Atlantic. Managing editor Matea Gold resigned from his position and joined The New York Times. 

Opinion section writers David Hoffman, Molly Roberts and Robert Kagan also quit, along with White House correspondent Tyler Pager, who will be rejoining The New York Times. Opinion editor Amanda Katz and her deputy Charles Lane also left.

Status revealed that star Trump reporter Josh Dawsey was also parting way with the publication and joining the Wall Street Journal.

Bezos responded to the endorsement controversy in an op-ed piece explaining his perspective. 

In it, he cited growing ‘distrust’ of media.

‘What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias,’ he wrote at the time, after decades of the Post promoting a Democrat.

‘A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.’

The Post was hit with mass layoffs last week.

Even before fumbling 250,000 subscriptions, The Post was already on track to lose $77 million.  

In September 2024, The Post laid off a quarter of its workforce from ArcXP, its separate software unit, months after implementing buyouts in a bid to prevent layoffs.

That month, the Post’s new publisher and CEO William Lewis issued a statement to staffers in the Washington, DC office detailing how dire the publication’s financial situation was, while promising, ‘We are going to turn this thing around.’

Pointing out how the paper’s audience ‘has halved in recent years’ in the process, he told his staff, ‘People are not reading your stuff.’