Richard Tofel

Analysis | After 47 years on the political beat for The Post, it’s transition time Dan Balz writes on his retirement from full-time work at The Washington Post after 47 years.

Hats off to the incomparable Dan Balz as he begins his next chapter. Simply the best at what he does, and such a good guy.

wapo.st/4laI0Qc

Lost Federal Data Means Found Opportunities for Journalism How great stories and real businesses can emerge from Musk's rubble

In light of Trump’s attack on the jobless count, and the counters, re-upping this from April on what the war on data means for journalism.
dicktofel.substack.com/p/lost-feder...

If Trump reacts to not liking the score by firing the scorekeeper, why should any of us believe it if the score subsequently gets better for him?

Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison For Conspiring With Jeffrey Epstein To Sexually Abuse Minors

Here’s why Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison.
Trump’s former personal lawyer, now his Deputy AG, has just had her moved to a more comfortable prison, clearly part of some emerging deal.
Shades of former Trump cabinet member Acosta’s soft handling of Epstein.
Obscene.
www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr...

Opinion | With Epstein, Trump Betrays His Brand. His Supporters Notice.

Best explanation I have yet seen of why the Epstein scandal hurts Trump.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/o...

Sorry you’re frustrated. You’re not the only one, as I thought the column made clear.
And it certainly didn’t advocate for neutrality.
But I do believe that fighting for truth and against lies is a more favorable framing than casting this as an ideological struggle.

From "Newsrooms Need to Get Tougher on All That Lying" by Richard Tofel. dicktofel.substack.com/p/newsrooms-...

Newsrooms Need to Get Tougher on All That Lying Practical steps we can take would help

@dicktofel.bsky.social’s request to the press:
Stop publishing lies in detail.
Demote responses including lies.
Stop platforming liars.
Call out sources who lie.
open.substack.com/pub/dicktofe...
Me: stop granting anonymity to spokespeople & operatives who lie to you.

cc @nytimes.com @politico.com

Newsrooms Need to Get Tougher on All That Lying Practical steps we can take would help

Practical ideas for how the press can fight an epidemic of lying. This week’s Second Rough Draft newsletter
open.substack.com/pub/dicktofe...

Adams Revives Bally’s Casino Bid by Vetoing Council’s Vote to Block It

You do have to wonder if helping snag a $115 million payout to Trump’s business was part of Adams’s deal to escape prosecution.
This is his second assist to the scheme in as many months.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/n...

Just this week, Israel’s Gaza disaster has lost the support of France, the UK, Canada and the majority of Democrats in the US Senate.
Netanyahu is isolating his country, with potentially catastrophic long-term consequences.

‘Anybody but Mamdani’: 5 Groups Emerge to Raise Millions in Attack Funds

Wake-up call to @nytimes.com metro desk:
Calling Cuomo, Adams, Sliwa and Walden “moderates” really misses the point in NYC politics. Voters see them as a bully, a crook, a nut and a nobody.
Covering the campaign as an ideological struggle misses what’s going on.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/n...

Laura Loomer, a self-proclaimed bigot and serial conspiracy theorist, seems to have become the shadow White House chief of staff. Just yesterday, she got both FDA’s top vaccine official and the general counsel of the NSA fired.
These stories, and others, need to be covered together, not separately.

Trump, the Press and Defining Deviancy Down What if the Epstein story is just beginning?

As Trump essentially admits he knew Epstein was trafficking women, and yet another pundit pooh-poohs the story, I hope we can all look again at the facts, and what minimizing this story would say about us.
Last week’s Second Rough Draft newsletter
dicktofel.substack.com/p/trump-the-...

Bombshell: Trump was aware Epstein was trafficking women who had worked for him at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump admits that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” young girls from him at Mar-a-Lago’s “spa” and brought them into his child sex trafficking ring. This includes Virginia Giuffre who died by suicide in April.

We texted nearly 1,100 Americans about Trump and the Epstein files. Here’s what they said. A Washington Post poll found that most Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of issues related to the Epstein files.

Interesting how little partisan views are divided about the Epstein scandal. The only real split is on approval of Trump’s handling, on which he breaks even with Republicans and is barely above water even with MAGA:

wapo.st/3HaN2hv

Will New York Focus Start Publishing Fact-Checks? Yes. This claim is accurate.

As @washingtonpost.com lets its fact checker take a buyout without a replacement, here’s an important new initiative from @nysfocus.bsky.social and @gigafact.bsky.social
nysfocus.com/2025/07/29/n...

Darren Walker on Philanthropy: ‘We Don’t Take Enough Risk’ In an exit interview, the president of the Ford Foundation talks about why his new book is still hopeful despite growing inequality.

Important critique of institutional philanthropy here from @fordfoundation.org’s departing leader, especially on not meeting the moment on inequality or taking enough risk.
I would add not being sufficiently transparent or curious about failures.
www.philanthropy.com/article/darr...

Opinion | Trump and the EU Dodge a Trade War The U.S. President gets his beloved 15% tariff but little else from Europe.

WSJ editorial offers preview of what’s left to GOP as it defends Trump trade deals:
Yes, you will pay a new tax, and the trade deficit will increase, and inflation gets a boost. But Trump gets his prized tariffs and it could have been worse!
www.wsj.com/opinion/trum...

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel Tom Lehrer - Who's Next - with intro

RIP to the great Tom Lehrer, a truly fearless comic (and the single person, among tens of thousands, whose support of @propublica.org kept me most confident we were on the right track)
youtube.com/watch?v=oRLO...

What Will It Cost to Renovate the ‘Free’ Air Force One? Don’t Ask.

Somebody call DOGE: Fixing the airplane Trump got from Qatar for Air Force One may cost almost a billion dollars of taxpayer money— and for only a year or two of public use, before it becomes the property of the Trump Library.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/u...

Re Ghislaine Maxwell:
Gerald Ford was much more popular than Trump is today when he pardoned Nixon. He never recovered politically.

Probably should have known this, but just realized that 14 deep red states still collectively give almost $150 million annually to public broadcasting. In recent years, Alaska, Florida, Indiana and Pennsylvania have cut funding.
Seems likely a critical next battleground— both opportunity and risk.

Independents Drive Trump's Approval to 37% Second-Term Low President Donald Trump's job approval rating has fallen to 37%, the lowest of his second term as a result of a decrease among independents.

Ultimately, if it continues, this trend will inevitably reshape our politics
news.gallup.com/poll/692879/...

Congrats on a great run to Julie Sandorf

Trump, the Press and Defining Deviancy Down What if the Epstein story is just beginning?

Column here:

dicktofel.substack.com/p/trump-the-...

Epstein’s best known underage victim came to his attention when she was working at Mar-a-Lago, and thus for Trump. Trump once flew a group of 28 young women from New York to Florida for a party at which he and Epstein were the only male guests. Trump has been accused by a former Epstein associate of groping her in Epstein’s presence in Trump’s office. A former Epstein employee seems to have talked at least once and perhaps twice to the FBI about Trump in the context of Epstein and the victimization of young women. That would have generated what the FBI calls a “302” report of each such conversation, and those reports would remain in the files of the Department of Justice. With Epstein dead and the woman having come forward publicly, there is no reason such a report couldn’t be released publicly. The book of leering birthday greetings for Epstein revealed recently by the Wall Street Journal was also reportedly reviewed by DOJ, and any records of that could also be released publicly if Trump or Attorney General Pam Bondi so wished. None of this is limited by grand jury secrecy, as these documents were likely not presented to or considered by a grand jury. Trump and Epstein were once sufficiently friendly that Epstein attended Trump’s second wedding and also socialized with Trump and his current wife. Meanwhile, Trump knew of and repeatedly spoke in public, lightheartedly, of Epstein’s proclivities for much younger women. Trump, notwithstanding having his own aircraft, flew at least seven times on Epstein’s plane. Those flight logs could also be disclosed. Only yesterday did we learn, again from the courageous work of the Journal, that Trump’s name appears multiple times in DOJ’s unreleased Epstein files, that he was told this two months ago by Bondi, and that he then ostensibly deferred to Bondi’s decision to release no further information from those files. Trump lied when asked directly about such a possibility last week. We learned also that the Director of t…

What we already know about Epstein and Trump.

It's a long list.

From @dicktofel.bsky.social

dicktofel.substack.com/subscribe?ut...

Trump, the Press and Defining Deviancy Down What if the Epstein story is just beginning?

Taking the Epstein-Trump story seriously. This week’s Second Rough Draft newsletter
open.substack.com/pub/dicktofe...

Alden Global Capital Makes a Play for The Dallas Morning News

Wow, a bidding war for a metro paper!
And between the best chain left in the country and the worst.
Let’s hope for the sake of readers in Dallas that Hearst increases its bid. Otherwise the DMN will wither and eventually die like the rest of Alden’s papers.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/b...