New York Times columnist falsely claims Trump controls the high court
Eighty-two-year-old Nina Totenberg had the 2026 prize for most embarrassingly false Supreme Court coverage published in a legacy media outlet nearly wrapped up with her June NPR report claiming, incorrectly, that Justice Alito had retired.
Yet Thomas Friedman’s insatiable appetite for journalism prizes is apparently such that he isn’t content with the three Pulitzers he has; Friedman’s latest New York Times column gives Totenberg a serious challenge for the Supreme Court inaccuracy award.
Friedman writes, in a 67-word trainwreck of a sentence: “But because this is the only country I have, because the midterms will be razor close and because I am convinced that two more years of Donald Trump completely unchained — controlling the House, the Senate and tacitly the Supreme Court — could bring about the end of America as we have known it, I have to think about how to make the best of some not great choices.”
My Webster’s Second Unabridged defines “tacitly” as “in a tacit manner; silently; by implication; without words.” Say what you will about Trump, but he is more voluble than taciturn. Does our president do anything silently? As for the claim that Trump controls the Supreme Court and is therefore “completely unchained,” it’s just not consistent with reality.
Here is the Wall Street’s Journal’s James Taranto in his Saturday interview with Justice Alito: “The president lost three major cases in the 2025-26 term: Learning Resources v. Trump (tariffs), Trump v. Cook (Federal Reserve independence) and Trump v. Barbara (birthright citizenship). Each of the decisions was written by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by the three liberals and one or two of Mr. Trump’s three appointees.”
Or if Taranto is too right-wing for Friedman, how about Justice Kagan, a former dean of Harvard Law School who was nominated to the court by President Barack Obama? Kagan said last month, as reported in the New York Times, “is this court kind of a puppet for the current administration? I think definitely not.” The Times headline over that one was “Kagan Says Supreme Court Has Stood Up to Trump in Key Cases.” Maybe Friedman was so busy giving speeches or golfing that he missed that story.
The rest of the Friedman column goes on to attack the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, American Jews, and Prime Minister Netanyahu while describing Netanyahu’s coalition partners as “a lot worse” than the Ku Klux Klan. It’s no more credible than the Supreme Court reporting.
Remarkably, even Friedman’s Middle East commentary—because it stops short of endorsing the Hamas-Zohran Mamdani goal of wiping Israel off the map—isn’t sufficient for the Times online commenters, who swarm Friedman with criticism. “No one deserves an apartheid state that deems citizens who confess the wrong religion or belong to the wrong ethnicity as a lower caste. This is the explicit policy of the Israeli government regarding the people of Palestine with different treatment based on their geographic position. In Gaza they are routinely slaughtered. In the West Bank displaced (and killed). Stop giving democrats bad advice Thomas Friedman. We have morals. Maybe you can bring your advice to Netanyahu. Your ideas about Israel will be better met there,” said one comment upvoted by 630 Times readers.
Another comment, from John Briggs of Ann Arbor, Michigan, upvoted by 277 Times readers, calls the Friedman column “repellent.”
“‘The right to exist’ is and has been the bromidic justification for the creation of Israel, through terror, on the backs of the Palestinians. Jews seized the lands of Palestinians and have convinced us, through our often self-serving pols, that God was on their side. Now, we have seen the truth of their rule by force and terror and gleeful brutality. Friedman can’t escape the boundaries of his clan, but he mustn’t mistake that for wisdom or for decency,” the comment says.
Another Times reader comment, recommended by 179 readers, tells Friedman, “The voters of Michigan have a lot to consider this coming November. The status of Israel is not at the tippy-top of anybody’s priority list save you, Bret Stephens and AIPAC.”
Times reader-commenters look at Jewish New York Times columnists who acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state the same way Friedman looks at Supreme Court justices nominated by Republican presidents—crudely lumping them together with little regard to nuance, subtle distinctions, or the truth. “Can’t escape the boundaries of his clan” just about sums it up in terms of inability to see past the categories. It could be that Friedman and his readers deserve each other.
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