Donald Trump continued his attack on The Atlantic following last week’s explosive story, in which editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that the president privately called Americans who died in combat “losers” and “suckers.” On Sunday, Trump came after Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire philanthropist who owns a majority stake in the magazine, describing the widow of Steve Jobs as “wasting money he left her” and calling on his supporters to get in touch with her about Goldberg’s story.
As CNN reported, Trump tweeted in response to Turning Point USA president Charlie Kirk, amplifying the right-wing provocateur’s suggestion that Powell Jobs has a hidden agenda because she donated to Joe Biden’s campaign and owns the magazine that published the damaging report. Trump’s attack, noted Recode’s Teddy Schleifer, “is another reminder of the downside for a billionaire buying a media publication” and perhaps a particularly unpleasant one for Powell Jobs, who “is intensely, intensely private.”
The White House has vehemently denied the revelations about Trump’s contempt for military service members and continues to attack the magazine for attributing their information to anonymous sources—a standard practice in journalism that both Goldberg and investigative reporter Carl Bernstein, who broke the Watergate story, defended Sunday on CNN.
“We all have to use anonymous sources, especially in a climate where the president of the United States tries to actively intimidate,” Goldberg told Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter, adding, “These are not people who are anonymous to me.” Despite Trump’s attempt to poke holes in The Atlantic’s reporting, multiple outlets—CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and even Fox News—have confirmed some aspects of the story. “We’re not going to be intimidated by the President of the United States,” Goldberg said of Trump’s counterattack. “We’re going to do our jobs.”
Bernstein stood by Goldberg’s editorial decision, noting “almost all 200 of our stories about Watergate were based on anonymous sourcing” and that when it comes to covering the Trump administration, “reporting is almost uniformly based on anonymous sourcing in part because that’s the only way we can get to the truth.”
Biden is reportedly capitalizing on his opponent’s political crisis with an ad targeted at military families. According to Axios, the Democratic nominee’s campaign is relaunching a spot titled “Protect Our Troops” this week, showcasing Biden’s personal connection to the U.S. military as well as his plans to support active-duty troops. At a press conference following The Atlantic report, Biden denounced Trump’s alleged contempt for soldiers, remarking that his late son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, “wasn’t a sucker” for joining the military.
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