--- title: Donald Trump Calls New York Times 'Virtually' Treasonous for Op-Ed description: President Donald Trump said the New York Times "virtually" committed treason by publishing an anonymous op-ed from a senior White House official. canonical: https://time.com/5389795/donald-trump-new-york-times-op-ed-virtually-treason/ author: Billy Perrigo article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-09-07T12:36:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T21:22:31.440Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Calls New York Times 'Virtually' Treasonous for Publishing Anonymous Op-Ed og:description: "Really what they’ve done is virtually, you know, it’s treason” og:url: https://time.com/5389795/donald-trump-new-york-times-op-ed-virtually-treason/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb48ac08290732774/698939a87cdbac8f51d5de03/gettyimages-1028046300.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3318 og:image:height: 1866 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-TRUMP og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Calls New York Times 'Virtually' Treasonous for Publishing Anonymous Op-Ed twitter:description: "Really what they’ve done is virtually, you know, it’s treason” twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb48ac08290732774/698939a87cdbac8f51d5de03/gettyimages-1028046300.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Calls New York _Times_ 'Virtually' Treasonous for Publishing Anonymous Op-Ed > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Billy Perrigo](https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/)  ## Billy Perrigo Correspondent Sep 7, 2018 12:36 PM UTC  US President Donald Trump speaks during a "Make America Great Again" rally in Billings, Montana on September 6, 2018. US President Donald Trump speaks during a "Make America Great Again" rally in Billings, Montana on September 6, 2018. NICHOLAS KAMM—AFP/Getty Images  by [Billy Perrigo](https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/)  ## Billy Perrigo Correspondent Sep 7, 2018 12:36 PM UTC President Donald Trump said the [New York _Times_](http://time.com/5388118/trump-new-york-times-reveal-anonymous-op-ed-writer/) “virtually” committed treason by publishing an anonymous op-ed it says is from a senior White House official who claimed to be part of an anti-Trump “resistance” in the Administration. At a rally Thursday in Montana, Trump told [Fox News](http://video.foxnews.com/v/5832001414001/?#sp=show-clips): “Number one, the _Times_ should never have done that, because really what they’ve done is virtually, you know, it’s treason, you could call it a lot of things.” The interview, which took place before Trump went on stage, aired Friday morning on _Fox & Friends_, the President’s favorite morning TV show. Trump also said that the author must be “fairly low level,” and suggested that he or she could be a “deep state person.” His use of the term “treason” – defined as “the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill or overthrow the sovereign or government” – echoes a tweet he posted not long after the _Times_ published the op-ed, reading simply “TREASON?” > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1037464177269514240) In the Fox interview, Trump also said “we are getting the wall done,” and that his Administration had already spent $3.2 billion so far on the border wall with Mexico. But he said that to get the extra funding needed, Republicans must be elected at the midterms in November. “If it was up to me, I’d shut down government over border security,” he said. “And I guess, if you get right down to it, it is up to me, but I don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt us or potentially hurt us, because I have a feeling that the Republicans are going to do very well.” He promised the crowd that right after the election, extra funding would be allocated. “Hopefully, frankly it’ll be easier because we’ll have more Republicans not less.” “It’ll be an exciting day, I can tell you that.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5389795/donald-trump-new-york-times-op-ed-virtually-treason/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5389795/donald-trump-new-york-times-op-ed-virtually-treason/"},"headline":"President Trump Calls New York Times 'Virtually' Treasonous for Publishing Anonymous Op-Ed","datePublished":"2018-09-07T12:36:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T21:22:31.440Z","description":"\"Really what they’ve done is virtually, you know, it’s treason”","url":"https://time.com/5389795/donald-trump-new-york-times-op-ed-virtually-treason/","keywords":["Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb48ac08290732774/698939a87cdbac8f51d5de03/gettyimages-1028046300.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Billy Perrigo","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb48ac08290732774/698939a87cdbac8f51d5de03/gettyimages-1028046300.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-TRUMP","caption":"US-POLITICS-TRUMP","creditText":"NICHOLAS KAMM—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5389795/donald-trump-new-york-times-op-ed-virtually-treason/","name":"President Trump Calls New York Times 'Virtually' Treasonous for Publishing Anonymous Op-Ed"}}]}] ```