60-Year Journalism Veteran Tells Carville That Trump, Bezos Have Made Him More ‘Depressed’ Than He’s Ever Been

Al Hunt, who has worked in journalism for more than six decades, expressed profound sadness about President Donald Trump and The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’ recent actions during a Thursday episode of the podcast he co-hosts with Democratic strategist James Carville.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday that the White House press pool will no longer be dictated by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), but instead by the press office. Hunt, on “Politics War Room,” began by complaining about Bezos shifting the Post’s op-ed section to focus on defending personal liberties and free markets, a move that he said was intended to gratify Trump. (RELATED: Big Tech Bends The Knee To Donald Trump)

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“The Washington Post went and they basically fired or, their editorial page editor, David Shipley, an honest journalist who ran that opinion page well, quit because Jeff Bezos, the owner, has said, ‘I only want editorials about personal liberties and free markets that reflect this point of view, and any other point of view on those are unacceptable.’ That’s an extraordinary thing for an owner to say,” Hunt said. “But what the real story is: ‘I want to please Donald Trump.’ That’s what The Washington Post, one of the greatest newspapers in American history, is doing right now.”

“I thought Bezos was a savior when he bought the paper 10 years ago; I now think he is one of the great villains of the day,” he continued. “He is pandering to Trump because I think he cares more about his government contracts than he does a free press. This is so depressing. But James, it’s really in line with Trump’s desire and success to turning America into a right-wing authoritarian regime.”

Hunt continued by asserting that Trump is following the path of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

“He’s going the same way as The [New York] Times’ great Peter Baker wrote, that Putin went 20 years ago, that Viktor Orbán in Hungary went 10 years ago — ending all checks and balances if possible, firing inspector generals, military Joint Chiefs of Staff, military JAG officers, seasoned career experts at the FBI and Justice Departments and crippling an independent press,” he said. “That’s what’s happening. He’s going, he’s bringing suits, they are caving and now the Washington Post.”

ABC News and one of its leading hosts, George Stephanopoulos, agreed in December to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit against them by paying $15 million as a “charitable contribution” towards a future “[p]residential foundation and museum” for the president.

Hunt lastly expressed his disapproval of the Trump White House barring The Associated Press from the press pool, the Oval Office and Air Force One over its decision to refuse to call the Gulf of America by its new name.

“Finally, the issue about The Associated Press and denying access. A president can offer any rewards or favoritism to those he thinks are friendly,” Hunt said. “He can give them exclusive interviews, he can invite them to White House dinners, he can praise them, he can do whatever he wants to, but he should not determine who covers him. He should not. That’s the people’s right.”

“And The Associated Press is the global gold standard of fair and accurate reporting around the world, actually. And if he gets away with banning them because, for one reason, they refer to the Gulf of Mexico, which is what it is, rather than his stupid idea to change it to the Gulf of America,” he continued. “I have been in journalism for over 60 years and I’ve never been as depressed as I am today, James.”

Former President Joe Biden’s administration announced new rules for issuing “hard passes” to media outlets in May 2023, costing 442 journalists their press passes.

Bezos’ move provoked ire among his staffers, with a handful of them publicly threatening to quit if the owner endeavored to modify his outlet’s news section.

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