The Washington Post is experiencing significant internal strife as Bezos continues to maintain his stance of non-endorsement.
Jeff Bezos has been silent on the issue, despite his own newspaper's journalists reporting that he was the one who stopped a planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. A source informed CNN on Friday that an endorsement for Harris had been drafted before it was scrapped.
In the past 24 hours, at least one editor has resigned, and notable Post staff members have shown their dissatisfaction. Many in the Opinion section are outraged over how the situation was managed.
For numerous current and former Post staff members, the timing of the announcement is questionable and has led them to believe Bezos's business interests played a role in the decision.
Former Post executive editor Marty Baron, who led the paper under Bezos during the first Trump administration, labeled the decision "cowardly."
"To declare a moment of high principle, only 11 days before the election, that's highly suspicious and just not believable," Baron said on CNN's Michael Smerconish show on Saturday. "Bezos has other commercial interests, a big stake in Amazon, he has a space company called Blue Origin. Trump has threatened to pursue his political enemies and rewards his friends and punishes his perceived political enemies."
Baron found Lewis's defense of the non-endorsement "laughable," pointing out that the Post has endorsed in other races.
"If their philosophy is that readers can make up their own minds on the big issues they face in this democracy, then don’t run any editorials," Baron said. "But the fact is, they only decided not to run an editorial in this one instance 11 days before the election."
Several current Post journalists told CNN they had no problem with the editorial board not endorsing in any situation, with some supporting the decision. However, they all found the timing of the announcement troubling.
"Deciding that now, right before an election, puts us in a lose-lose position: cowards for caving or whiners for not endorsing Harris, which the Trump campaign is already trying to use to undermine us," one Post journalist told CNN. Another reporter told CNN that "people are angry and feel like senior managers are undermining the journalism."
Many staff members expressed deep concern that the wave of readers cancellations due to the news directly impact the newsroom's ability to operate.
Robert Kagan, a Post columnist and opinion editor-at-large, who had been with the paper for 25 years, resigned on Friday as a direct result of the non-endorsement.
"This is clearly an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favor with Donald Trump in anticipation of his possible victory," Kagan told CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront on Friday. "Trump has threatened to go after Bezos' business. Bezos runs one of the largest companies in America. They have tremendously intricate relations with the federal government. They depend on the federal government."
On Friday, Trump met with executives from Blue Origin, the space exploration company owned by Bezos, hours after the Post announced its decision. The company has a $3.4 billion contract with the federal government to build a new spacecraft to transfer astronauts to and from the moon's surface.
Trump advisers and supporters have celebrated since both the Post and the Los Angeles Times' billionaire owners prevented their papers from endorsing Harris.
A post by a Post reporter noting that Trump met with Blue Origin executives the same day the Post declined to endorse Harris was reposted by Trump spokesman Steven Cheung along with multiple "heart" emojis.
Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller also jumped on the non-endorsement, writing "You know the Kamala campaign is sinking when even the Washington Post refuses to endorse."
Earlier in the week, the Trump campaign used the Los Angeles Times' non-endorsement in a fundraising email, calling it a "humiliating blow" for Harris.
Other staffers said the decision not to endorse will ultimately harm American democracy, even though Lewis claimed in his note to readers that the move should not be seen as a "tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another."
In a joint statement, renowned Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein called the decision "surprising and disappointing," noting the timing of the announcement "ignores the Washington Post's own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy."
A group of 17 Post opinion columnists also published a statement Friday evening, criticizing their own newspaper's decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election as a "terrible mistake."
"The Washington Post's decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake," they wrote. "It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years."
In light of the controversial non-endorsement, some Post staff members believe Bezos's business interests may have influenced the decision due to his stake in Amazon and Blue Origin. After the Post announced its decision, Trump adviser Stephen Miller wrote on Twitter, "You know the Kamala campaign is sinking when even the Washington Post refuses to endorse."
