The New York Times' Two Hour Trump "Interview" Was a MasterClass in Sanewashing
Fun Fact: They've been puffing him up since the mid 1970s
Four New York Times journalists stumbled into Trump’s lair for two hours late last week and ended up with his sebaceous peacock feathers in their mouths.1
The New York Times called it an interview. They bragged about it as if they had just conquered the heavily defended coast of Greenland.
But it wasn’t an interview. Trump, pumped up with God knows how many uppers, his drooping right cheek injected with more Botox than a Kardashian fills up on in a decade, dropped an endless stream of propaganda into the voice recorders of the most hapless victims since Pennywise punked Derry.
Here is how the New York Times’ Sam Sifton reported on the gathering in its immediate aftermath. He apparently had to drop the first story because the four reporters, still in a state of delirious shock after having been trapped in the same room with the odorous, odious one-man world-wrecking crew for two hours without a break, were still too incapacitated to file their reports:
The journalists were at the White House for an interview with the president — a remarkable, wide-ranging, on-the-record discussion that lasted for nearly two hours. They also sat in on a lengthy call Trump took from Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, the contents of which were off the record, and were led on a walk through the residence.
When the Times feels like it needs to protect its reputation while sanitizing Trump, it uses words like “remarkable,” because the word can signify “bad” remarkable as well as good. They think that’s clever, but the problem is that most people in 21st-century America think “remarkable” is a synonym for “fantastic,” rather than the Oxford definition of “worthy of attention; striking.”
But, okay, fine. Maybe that’s just me picking a nit. Let’s move on, shall we?
Trump was animated and energetic throughout the interview.
Oh, shit.
It is then that we know we are in for a New York Times sanewashing marathon:
Trump was animated and energetic throughout the interview. As the Times reporters — Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers and David Sanger — pressed him on a variety of topics, he summoned aides to bring supporting documents, printouts and a scale model of the ballroom he’s building where the East Wing once stood. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were in the room for the Petro call.
Before we move on to the next few paragraphs of Sifton’s report, I’m going to dig way, way back into my journalism school days and rewrite that paragraph I just reproduced:
Trump appeared hopped up on uppers throughout his constant stream of bombastic claims. As the Times reporters — Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers and David Sanger — staggered through the interview like rats caught in a cage full of methane, he summoned a pretty blonde with the most evil eyes we’ve seen since Jeffrey Dahmer’s first date gone awry. He later called forth sycophants JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the call with Petro so they could be sure to praise him properly later.
Now you know why I never advanced from being a daily reporter at my college newspaper to the New York Times, but that’s another story. In my defense, it was a long time ago. I didn’t expect so much money to be made sucking up to authoritarians.
Sifton’s article moves on to a meta paragraph about what to expect in the article (sanewashing, maybe? Just a crazy guess.)
Then it moves on to the topic of the ICE murder. They’re not gonna whitewash this, right? No way!
From the article:
“I want to see nobody get shot,” Trump said of Good’s confrontation with immigration agents, speaking to our reporters. “I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen.”
He also said she had targeted an immigration agent with her car: “She behaved horribly, and then she ran him over.”
A video that captured the incident does not show the agent being run over, the reporters told him.
“I’ll play the tape for you right now,” Trump replied. He called for a staff member to bring a laptop and stand behind the Resolute Desk to show the reporters what he said would be evidence of Good’s wrongdoing.
In hockey, this is called pulling the goalie. In soccer, it’s a free shot. This was such an easy opportunity for four reporters to score some easy points that you’d have to be sitting in a chair with a gun to your head to skip the chance.
The video played in slow motion.
Oooh! Go on! You’re gonna get him, aren’t you!????
It showed agents ordering Good to exit her S.U.V., which partly blocks a street.
That’s the takeaway here? You did say you saw this in slow motion, right?
She backs up, then drives forward and turns. An agent near the headlight fires, and then continues to shoot as her car moves past.
After the reporters watched it with the president, one of them said that it did not appear to show the car running over the ICE officer.
How bold of that one reporter. Where’s Pulitzer? Let’s skip all the other candidates for the prize and just hand it to that courageous soul.
“It’s a terrible scene,” Trump said when the video ended. “I hate to see it.”
Still, he implied that Good had brought it on herself.
“I watched the one woman screaming, the one woman in the car before she got shot I heard was unbelievably bad, badly behaved,” he told the reporters. “You’re supposed to listen to law enforcement.”
The dumb teachers I had in journalism school would probably have suggested during one of our labs (do they still do labs in college?) that this would have been a good time to tell Herr Hatemeister that the woman screaming was chasing the murderer while screaming, “SHAME! SHAME!”
Ah, but these are elite reporters. Elite reporters don’t challenge crime lords or acolytes of Roy Cohn. Luckily, Sifton provides a link for more details of their finely tuned reporting.
This leads to a rabbit hole that veers further to the right, where we get a report filed by one of the reporters, Zolan Kanno-Youngs (upvote for that name), the first to be resuscitated at the ICU after staggering away from Trump’s grasp:
The headline and subtitle of that piece reads:
We Pressed Trump on His Conclusion About the ICE Shooting. Here’s What He Said.
The exchange was a glimpse into the president’s reflexive defense of his federal crackdown on immigration.
You pressed him? Imagine me yelling at AOC ❤️ about something, and that’s about the level of pressing I am expecting here.
Anyhoo, time for another rewrite:
We Soaked Up Every Word He Said in Defense of ICE, While We Fantasized About a Journalist Foursome in the Hamptons
The exchange was a glimpse into the president’s reflexive defense of fascist authoritarianism, extrajudicial killings, and murder.
And now, as Paul Harvey (don’t ask) used to say, for the rest of our story, the essence of which is captured by this paragraph:
The exchange was a glimpse into Mr. Trump’s reflexive defense of what has become a sometimes violent federal crackdown on immigration, which in this case claimed the life of an American citizen who was protesting ICE’s presence in Minneapolis.
Quick question for my readers, because sometimes all the crazy talk fogs my brain. Doesn’t “sometimes violent federal crackdown on immigration” imply “sometimes peaceful federal crackdown on immigration?”
Are there incidents I’m not aware of where ICE is not shooting devoted moms in the face, shoving people into SUVs, chasing down their vehicles, blocking roads, zip-tying children, and sending people to concentration camps in remote parts of the world?
Why is there always a polite way to sugarcoat fascist behavior by a bunch of goons hired right out of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers right-wing gestapo cosplayer squads?
The article goes on to say:
We asked if, in his mind, firing into a vehicle like that was acceptable.
Come on, Zolan, credit where credit is due. “We,” as in the four reporters, did not ask him that. You did. Sifton said in the introductory article that one reporter asked. That would have to be you, since you’re the byline for this more detailed report.
Mad respect, Zolan. Maybe see if the MeidasTouch Network is hiring.
So what did the maestro of malevolence say in response, Zolan?
“She behaved horribly,” Mr. Trump said. “And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over.”
We told the president that the early videos circulating online were unclear.
“Unclear,” oh sages of sanitization?
I’ve never seen a clearer early video since I saw Herr Trumpepstein getting hammered by Kamala in a presidential debate. Which was another fail by your fabled newspaper:
There were no videos suggesting that the murder victim, Renee Nicole Good, tried to run over anyone. She never moved faster than a mile an hour or so. Mostly, she was thinking about how to get home safely to her kids.
Even a mope like Jonathan Ross, Rennee Nicole Good’s executioner, could dance around a vehicle moving at that speed.
The New York Times’ next move was to post one of their feature stories with big, beautiful photographs, this one showing the barely functioning monolith of mendacity sitting at a table looking strong, confident, and eager to cover his hands, even though the White House’s crack makeup team bleached them for the interview.
If I’m arranging a photo shoot for the feature’s big, beautiful photograph, I’m asking him to wear the clown hat, but that’s just me.
Cover that hand! Fix that mouth!
The headlines over the photograph read like this:2
Highlights From The Times’s Interview With President Trump
Mr. Trump sat down with our reporters for an interview in which he talked about his health, watched a video of an ICE shooting and mused about his power on the world stage.
The first several paragraphs of text were worse than their standard sanewashing exercise:
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, President Trump acknowledged that the United States could be entangled with Venezuela for years to come, reveled in the success of the military operation he ordered there, discussed his health and conveyed how emboldened he feels to exercise his power around the globe.
“My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” Mr. Trump said during a lengthy conversation with the Times reporters Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers and David E. Sanger. The president also answered questions about the Russia-Ukraine war, Greenland and NATO, and reacted to a video of the killing of a U.S. citizen by an ICE agent that happened just hours earlier.
I can only respond to this introduction with one simple graphic:
The reports about the interview are full of this kind of stuff. His bellicosity and hate-based grievance peddling becomes, through these interview reports, sanewashed, sanitized, and normalized:3
Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’
On topic after topic, President Trump made clear that he would be the arbiter of any limits to his authorities, not international law or treaties.
There are so many better ways to rewrite that headline that I won’t insult you by doing so. Yay, free comments! Have at it, if you want, but if you don’t, I think you know that a headline like this doesn’t begin to capture the essence of how the worst person in recent history says he’s restrained only by his own morality.
Even something as simple as this works better:
Trump Threatens the Nation with His Demented Version of Morality
The stories about their interview were replete with unchallenged Trump propaganda.
On Ukraine:
President Trump indicated that he was ready to commit to the United States being involved in Ukraine’s future defense — but only, he said, because he was confident that Russia would not try to invade the country again.
“I feel strongly they wouldn’t re-invade, or I wouldn’t agree to it,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday.
Unchallenged by the fearsome four of crack interviewers.
On AI:
“I think A.I. is going to be a tremendous job producer,” Mr. Trump said, predicting that the expanding sector would produce “so many jobs” that “we don’t have enough people to fill the jobs, and that’s where robots come in.”
(That sound you hear is me slapping my forehead)
Also unchallenged.
On tearing down the White House to create the Trump House:
After tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build a lavish new ballroom, Mr. Trump is turning his sights to a more famous section of the White House. He wants to build a second level on top of the colonnade that connects the West Wing to the White House residence.
Word is that the architectural drawings of the proposed changes borrow heavily from the Idiocracy school of architecture, but of course, the New York Times not only downplayed this rumor, but they ignored it.
Ruminato has obtained a possibly satirical update to the architectural plans:
The report continues:
Later, during a tour of the White House residence, he said he planned to tear up the brick walkways in Lafayette Park and replace them with granite.
“I’m spending my own money and I’m going to redo it,” Mr. Trump said of the park. He estimated the cost would be about $10 million. “I pay everything,” he said when asked whether taxpayers or donors would foot the bill.
Mr. Trump said his decision to tear up the park walkways, in part, was because protesters could pluck bricks from the walkway and throw them.
Well, duh. I know I would heave one your way if I had half a chance. So would about 90 million other people I know.
Official Ruminato Disclaimer: No, Kash, this isn’t a conspiracy. Take your beady eyes off my Substack and go stalk your girlfriend.
On still more construction/destruction plans:
Mr. Trump described not only his plans for a large ballroom that has more than doubled in size since it was first proposed, but also his ideas for more building projects. Those include the renovations of the West Wing and Lafayette Park, as well as Washington Dulles International Airport, and the construction of a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery and a national garden of American heroes on the Potomac River.
A smart reporter, upon hearing, “a national garden of American heroes on the Potomac River,” would have asked, “So, more white guys?”
But alas, they don’t have my snark, do they?
There was more, as the Times gushed on about their good fortune in meeting the actual, for real “architect” of the big beautiful ballroom:
Some of Mr. Trump’s construction intentions came into clearer focus on Thursday during a meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission, in which Shalom Baranes, the architect on the ballroom project, presented preliminary plans.
Mr. Baranes displayed renderings of a ballroom that was equal in height to the White House’s Executive Mansion, raising some concerns among commission members about the size of the project.
Remarkably, within the context of all this, the reporters remained in the room as Trump took an hour-long call with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro.
While they waited, they texted each other with their plans for their foursome in the Hamptons, excitedly describing the upcoming soirée, according to Ruminato sources, as “a combination of a sanewashing symposium and wild sex.”
One intercepted message obtained by Ruminato’s elite team of cyber sleuths read, “I’m gonna need it after this shit show.”
If Trump was as lucid as the New York Times reports, then his doctors deserve a medal for their fabulous work. We won’t know until they publish the full transcript as promised.
When (if) they do (the longer it takes, the more suspicious it becomes), we’ll have a better idea on the progress of the best the American medical establishment has to offer in fighting dementia. So at least that part is good.
The Times has been propping him up since the mid-seventies
We often hear the press claim that Trump has upended everything. With the right-wing in full ownership of a huge percentage of the media, shouldn’t that also mean that the New York Times, with its limp claims to high-powered journalism, should respond by calling it like it really is?
No?
Then my next question is, why?
So I donned my conspiracy hat and wondered how long this media giant has been propping him up.
Answer?
A long ass time.
Since at least 1976:
November 1, 1976
“Donald Trump, Real Estate Promoter, Builds Image as He Buys Buildings”4
Check this out:
He is tall, lean and blond, with dazzling white teeth, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford.
Ruinato sanity check:
He rides around town in a chauffeured silver Cadillac with his initials, DJT, on the plates. He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to the most elegant clubs and, at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is worth “more than $200 million.”
Flair. It’s one of Donald J. Trump’s favorite words, and both he, his friends and his enemies use it when describing his way of life as well as his business style as New York’s No. 1 real estate promoter of the middle 1970’s.
“If a man has flair,” the energetic, outspoken Mr. Trump said the other day, “and is smart and somewhat conservative and has a taste for what people want, he’s bound to be successful in New York.”
Mr. Trump, who is president of the Brooklyn based Trump Organization, which owns and manages 22,000 apartments, currently has three imaginative Manhattan real‐estate projects in the works. And much to his delight, his brash, controversial style has prompted comparisons with his flamboyant idol, the late William Zeckendorf Sr., who actually developed projects as striking as those Mr. Trump is proposing.
This all seems worth exploring further. Don’t you think? Maybe this is more than a little innocent sanewashing.
Or…
Thanks for reading!
Notes
I shouldn’t make fun of stroke patients, but I am one, so I can. Deal with it, Donny. Exercise a bit more, and you won’t look so bad most of the time.
My vision is behaving badly today, so if there are typos, apologies. I’ll fix them later.
I can imagine some of the responses: “Screw the New York Times,” and all that. Fair. But, hey, they gave me a deal when I unsubscribed immediately after the November 2024 election, and somebody needs to keep track of this stuff. Besides, there are actually a few good journalists remaining there, hidden within those sanewashed, Trump-covered walls. I like to see what they’re up to.
Be sure to check out the gift links if you want to see the full reports on the interviews. They bypass the NY Times paywall. I’ll follow up with a review of the transcripts if they ever arrive in my inbox.
Footnotes
Nytimes.com. “The Morning: An Oval Office Viewing,” 2026.
Karoun Demirjian, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Sharon LaFraniere, Kenneth P Vogel, Katie Rogers, David E Sanger, Tyler Pager, Megan Mineiro, and Colby Smith. “Highlights from the New York Times’s Interview with Trump: Live Updates.” The New York Times, January 8, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/08/us/trump-nyt-interview.
🎁 [Ruminato Gift Link] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/08/us/trump-nyt-interview?unlocked_article_code=1.DVA.2Nq_.55e7rp3DW6vM&smid=url-share 🎁
Sanger, David E, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs. “Trump Addresses Venezuela, Greenland and Presidential Power in New York Times Interview.” The New York Times, January 8, 2026.
🎁 [Ruminato Gift Link] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DVA.qhhS.a_yEDsl8iVzV&smid=url-share 🎁
You can read the entire hagiography through this Ruminato Gift Link:
🎁 [Ruminato Gift Link] https://www.nytimes.com/1976/11/01/archives/donald-trump-real-estate-promoter-builds-image-as-he-buys-buildings.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DVA.ICkk.zbufe1uN8EVp&smid=url-share 🎁
Remarkable is one of my favorite words which I may never use again after this report. Sad commentary on the state of America and the main stream news
I laughed so hard at first I thought this was satire. Sadly it’s real. But the resemblance between trump and Robert Redford is uncanny! 😏