In the four days of coverage after President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iran (6/21–24/25), the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post responded with 36 opinion pieces and editorials. Almost half of these, 17, explicitly supported the illegal bombing, while only 7 (19%) took an overall critical view of the strikes—none of them in the Journal or the Post.
Of the critical pieces, only three (one in the Times and two in USA Today) opposed the idea on legal or moral grounds, challenging the idea that the United States has a right to attack a country that had not attacked it.
This opposition rate of less than a fifth is in stark contrast to US public opinion on the matter, which showed that 56% of Americans opposed Trump’s bombing. Why wasn’t this reflected in the range of opinions presented by America’s top press outlets? These numbers highlight just how poorly represented the views of the public are in elite media.
FAIR looked at all opinion pieces in the four papers that addressed Trump’s strikes on Iran, from June 21 through June 24. Forty-seven percent (17) explicitly praised Trump’s unauthorized act of war.
Many of these cheered the aggressive assertion of US power. The New York Times’ Bret Stephens (6/22/25) lauded “Trump’s Courageous and Correct Decision,” which “deserves respect, no matter how one feels about this president and the rest of his policies.” At the Washington Post, David Ignatius (6/22/25) offered similar praise under the headline, “Trump’s Iran Strike Was Clear and Bold,” and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board (6/22/25) declared, “Trump Meets the Moment on Iran.”
Hellbound and Down 