You’ve gotta hand it to The New York Times: At least they don’t make any bones about how fungible their journalistic integrity is.
On Monday, Richard Grenell helmed his last meeting as the head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A longtime Donald Trump loyalist who was brought in to reform the D.C. institution, Grenell announced last week that he was leaving the position after a year and change.
How you felt about the departure is a matter of whether you thought Grenell was sufficiently conservative for the gig. (In full disclosure, Grenell — whose civil partner is a male — fired Floyd Brown, founder of The Western Journal, from a position as vice president of the Kennedy Center, purportedly because of Brown’s support of traditional marriage.)
However, how The New York Times felt about Grenell’s departure was pretty much summed up in their headline to the piece about it: “A Hard-Knock Life: A Trump Cabinet Hopeful Is Moved Offstage.”
Basically, the piece was about how “Grenell’s comedown is in contrast to his status in Mr. Trump’s first term, when the president tapped him for a series of top policy roles, among them ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and acting chief of national intelligence,” to use New York Times author Elizabeth Williamson’s exact verbiage. She’s been covering Grenell for six years, and you could feel the glee leaping through the keyboard.
Later in the story, Williamson noted this about whether her subject had anything to say about the reshuffle: “Mr. Grenell did not respond to a question on whether he will remain in government. In his remaining administration role, special missions envoy, including to Venezuela and North Korea, administration officials say he has repeatedly clashed over Venezuela policy with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who won out over Mr. Grenell in his quest to be America’s top diplomat.”
“Mr. Grenell also did not respond to questions about his future and his turbulent year. Instead, he sent a text message criticizing The New York Times’s coverage of Republicans and conservatives,” she added.
Grenell had the receipts, however, and noted on X that he was “not falling for” her tactics.
And so he did, including the text thread between the two of them that led to that two-paragraph portion of the story.
Williamson: “Hi Ric, it’s Elizabeth Williamson from the New York Times. I’m writing about your being replaced at the helm of the Kennedy Center. I know the president says he’s looking for your next venture, but any ideas what you’ll do next? Any general comment on what has proven a turbulent year for you in the administration?”
Williamson: “Thanks.”
Grenell: “Here’s my on the record comment. ‘You are such a left wing hack who is not interested in the truth, but interested in attacking Republicans and manipulating the news for your own far left agenda. Anyone looking at your body of work realizes that you’ve just got an agenda that includes anything against conservatives.’”
Well, ask a loaded question, get the kind of answer you should expect. Except Williamson gave Grenell a tacit threat: Answer how we like or we’ll just say you said nothing.
Williamson: “I watched it live. It would be great if you would answer the questions I sent. Or we’ll write you declined to answer them. Your choice. Thanks.”
Grenell: “I didn’t decline to answer them. Lol. You just don’t get to approve the answers.”
Williamson: “Once more: The president said he’s looking for your next venture, but any ideas what you’ll do next? Any general comment on what has proven a turbulent year for you in the administration? Thanks.”
Grenell: “It’s quite shocking to see that you would say that I declined to answer simply because you didn’t like my answer. Do you think your Editor would approve of that. Do you think the Public would approve of that?”
Elizabeth Williamson isn’t a journalist. She is a left wing hack who lies about Republicans. All the time.
I’m not falling for her agenda-drive tactics. I’m exposing her.
Here is the text exchange I just had with her proving she lies. @NYTLiz should be fired.
Can you imagine… pic.twitter.com/OCQntJ4aLZ
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 16, 2026
Journalisming, Gray Lady style. My guess is that Williamson’s editor would not approve of simply saying he didn’t respond, no, so we got the well, he wouldn’t answer my questions and kept rambling about how we’re unfair to Republicans, don’t know where he got that idea spiel.
This is what happens when you start with a predetermined narrative for what’s supposed to be a journalistic piece and someone decides to throw a wrench into the gears of the left-wing media machine.
What’s hilarious is that over 500,000 people have viewed Williamson’s messages to Grenell effectively exposing her intent. If you think even a fraction of those individuals read the actual hit piece, you clearly haven’t been paying attention to how legacy media is doing nowadays.
I don’t want to say that the algorithm managed to deliver cosmic justice here, but I don’t want to not say it, either. Whatever the case, the popular meme remains undefeated: No matter what you think, you don’t hate the media enough.
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