--- 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: 2026-10-13T07:53:31.675Z 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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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=6786af1c-4fa9-42f2-ad39-b784cead612f&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: President Trump Calls New York Times 'Virtually' Treasonous for Publishing Anonymous Op-Ed [Watch (HLS stream): President Trump Calls New York Times 'Virtually' Treasonous for Publishing Anonymous Op-Ed](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EmPas522.m3u8) (0:44)  _Published 2018-09-07. At a rally Thursday in Montana, Trump told Fox News: “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.”_  by [Billy Perrigo](https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/)  ## Billy Perrigo Correspondent Sep 7, 2018 12:36 PM UTC At a rally Thursday in Montana, Trump told Fox News: “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.”  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.” ## Transcript [00:00] [ MUSIC ] [00:05] Are you entering any closer to knowing who did it and [00:07] what should be done if you find out who did it? Well [00:11] number one The Time should never done that because [00:13] really what they have done is virtually what's treason [00:16] you can call it a lot of things. But to think that you have [00:19] somebody in all of the Cabinet, so many people, as [00:22] you know. They came forward, they're writing [00:23] editorials. They're all saying, it's gotta be at a fairly low [00:27] level, because so many people today, I was just [00:29] coming out. And I see all the people that are saying [00:32] such great things. We have a lot of love in the [00:35] administration. And the White House is truly as you [00:39] would say, a well oiled machine, it is working so well. ```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":"2026-10-13T07:53:31.675Z","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":"https://time.com/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/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"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"President Trump Calls New York Times 'Virtually' Treasonous for Publishing Anonymous Op-Ed","description":"At a rally Thursday in Montana, Trump told Fox News: “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.”","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/EmPas522/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-09-07T13:24:32.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EmPas522.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5389795/donald-trump-new-york-times-op-ed-virtually-treason/","duration":"PT44S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5389795/donald-trump-new-york-times-op-ed-virtually-treason/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```