'Comically bad': New York Times trashed for saying Biden is 'painting' Trump as a felon

Critics on Monday pounced on the New York Times for a story about a new Biden 2024 ad in which it stated that the president's campaign is trying to "paint" his rival as a convicted felon.

As the critics noted, it is simply a fact that Trump is a convicted felon after he was convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to an adult film star.

"These ⁦NY Times⁩ headlines are getting comically bad," argued author Jeff Sharlet. "'Paints'? No—Trump IS a felon. It’s not an opinion."

"It is amazing the lengths legacy media goes to soft- peddle basic facts about Trump," wrote former journalist Jennifer Schulze. "He IS a convicted felon & this new Biden ad clearly says that. The NY Times' headline and story about the ad should say it plainly, too. COME ON."

"I generally think bashing the NYT from the left for equivocating about Trump is dumb," wrote Matt Bennett, the cofounder of the centrist think tank Third Way. "That paper gets most things right. But this headline is absolutely ridiculous."

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Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin was even more blunt in her criticism.

"FFS he IS a felon," she argued.

"He *is* a felon," emphasized Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile. "No 'painting' necessary."

In addition to the convictions for falsifying business records, Trump also faces dozens of other felony charges that include obstructing government efforts to retrieve top-secret government documents from his properties and conspiring to defraud the United States with his efforts to illegally remain power after losing the 2020 presidential election.

Trump has also been found liable by a jury for sexually abusing and defaming journalist E. Jean Carroll, and he was also the only president in American history to have been impeached on two separate occasions despite only serving one term in office.