Biden White House renews subscriptions to New York Times, Washington Post

President Biden’s White House has renewed subscriptions to The New York Times and The Washington Post after former President Trump canceled them out of anger over how he was portrayed. 

A White House source said physical copies of both papers arrived on Thursday morning, Biden’s first full day as president. 

Trump canceled the White House subscriptions to two of the nation’s largest newspapers in October of 2019 as part of his long-running feud with the news media. At the time, Trump described their coverage as “fake” and “corrupt.” 

Both the New York Times and Washington Post saw spikes in subscriptions and readership through the Trump years, making stars out of their top reporters for their breaking news and aggressive coverage. 

Trump still followed reporting on his administration in both papers, often lashing out on Twitter over stories about his administration, calling them unfair or untrue. 

There were deep wells of distrust between the Trump administration and the press, with media fact-checkers and reporters directly calling out the president’s falsehoods. Trump’s White House largely stopped conducting press briefings in his final months in office. 

The Trump years also produced a scourge of misinformation that circulated on social media and in some of the far-right outlets Trump promoted.

In her first press conference on Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said one of her top priorities would be “rebuilding trust with the American people.”

“When the president asked me to serve in this role, we talked about the importance of bringing truth and transparency back to the briefing room and he asked me to ensure we are communicating about the policies across the Biden-Harris administration and the work his team is doing every single day on behalf of all American people,” she said.