How Shipley Hit the Fan

David Shipley
Both Shipley and Lewis strongly disagreed with Bezos’s desire to pull the endorsement, arguing that such a dramatic move so close to the election would look bad and alienate the paper’s core audience. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
March 8, 2025

Last September, during the now-fabled meeting at one of his Indian Creek Island homes on Biscayne Bay, Jeff Bezos informed Washington Post leadership of his desire to see the paper forgo its quadrennial tradition of presidential endorsements—a decision that would, as everyone knows, go off like a nuclear bomb over the paper. When the decision was finally announced more than a month later, in the final days before the election, Bezos was memorably pilloried by the D.C. media establishment for what appeared to be a callous and brazen capitulation to Trump. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of subscribers reportedly abandoned the paper.