Why the New York Times Case Against Trump Reads Like Impeachment

Editors Urge Americans to Vote for Democrats

Official White House Photo by Molly Riley

The New York Times Editorial Board has published a 1,912-word editorial so scathing and specific it could serve as the basis for articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. In it, the paper of record urges Americans to vote for Democrats as a means of rejecting Trump.

In “Trump Has Failed. Hold Him to Account,” the editors wrote: “A vote for a Democratic candidate is the best way for Americans to repudiate the Trump administration’s performance over the past two years.”

They explain the stakes: “If Democrats retake both houses of Congress, and more state governments than they now control, it will tell the world that Mr. Trump does not represent most Americans. It will demonstrate that a country that starts to slide toward autocracy can move back to normalcy, as happened in Hungary this spring. Most important, it will create a desperately needed check on Mr. Trump during his final two years in office.”

The Times editors lay out what Democrats could do with a House majority. Trump’s legislative ambitions would be “largely ended,” they write, with no more tax cuts that worsen the national debt. And they add that “Democrats can instead use must-pass spending bills to restore money that was improperly cut from Medicaid, schools, scientific research and disease prevention.”

They note that congressional committee chairs would resume important oversight work, exercising “their constitutional duty to hold the president and his appointees responsible for their actions, through the use of hearings, subpoenas and more.”

With a Senate majority, the editors add, Democrats would be able to “stop Mr. Trump from appointing unqualified cabinet members like Todd Blanche, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and ideologues like Russ Vought.”

Senators could also insist on federal judges who, in the editors’ words, “while surely conservative, will uphold the law.”

The Times grounds its case in Trump’s disastrous record, including his “failure to keep his campaign promises, his attempts to undermine American democracy and his flagrant corruption.”

In case anyone needed a refresher, the Times offered one.

“In a 21-month span, he has done more harm to democracy and the rule of law than any other president in the modern era and perhaps longer than that,” the editors wrote. They point to his breaking his oath of office and refusing to honor Congress’ role as holding the “power of the purse.” And, the editors wrote, Trump has “misused national security laws for political ends.”

Trump, they continued, has defied federal court orders, “dismantled the Justice Department’s legacy as an impartial enforcer of federal law,” and “appointed inept sycophants to oversee crucial government functions.”

They also charge he has attempted to disenfranchise voters and “physically besmirched the White House by demolishing the East Wing and financing a garish renovation with donations from wealthy allies.”

The editors also tally the economic damage: a higher cost of living, falling real wages, rising interest rates and a national debt above $40 trillion. They pin inflation on two Trump decisions, the war with Iran and tariffs on global imports. And they report Trump’s business empire earned $2.24 billion in 2025, nearly two-thirds of it from cryptocurrency, an industry his own administration is supposed to regulate.

If the polls are to be believed, and at least one expert says election results may turn out better than the numbers currently show, Trump will be repudiated and his “super-lame duck” status fully cemented.

But only if enough Americans vote next Tuesday.

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