A New York Times report on the “priceless” view from the official New York residence of Nikki Haley as Ambassador to the United Nations has inspired outrage from Democrats and left-wing activists.
“Nikki Haley’s View of New York Is Priceless. Her Curtains? $52,701,” the Times’ title reads. That was enough for Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu to call for “an oversight hearing on State Department spending on Nikki Haley and her deputy.”
Left-wing activist David Hogg also got in on the anti-Haley action, writing a mini-letter on behalf of “America” condemning the ambassador for having the “audacity to misappropriate thousands of tax dollars for your own lavish lifestyle” while there are children starving in America. “Resign immediately,” “America” demanded (h/t Twitchy).
But, as Haley’s office told the Times in its deceptively titled article, there’s just one big problem: She had nothing to do with those pricey curtains. They were ordered back in 2016, approved by Obama’s State Department. Here’s the line buried in the sixth paragraph of the article on “Ms. Haley’s curtains”:
A spokesman for Ms. Haley said plans to buy the curtains were made in 2016, during the Obama administration. Ms. Haley had no say in the purchase, he said.
Despite this admission, the Times repeatedly portrays the curtains and the residence as “Ms. Haley’s” and puts the onus on the Trump State Department instead of Obama’s, which approved, ordered and allocated funds for the curtains. A few excerpts from the disingenuous piece (emphasis added):
Ms. Haley’s residence is particularly grand since it is used for official entertaining. But her deputy’s is also very nice, having served as the location for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s intimate steak dinner in May with Kim Yong-chol, North Korea’s top nuclear weapons negotiator. During the dinner, Mr. Pompeo used its sweeping views to point out various features of New York City’s skyline to the senior official from the world’s most reclusive country. …
Ms. Haley’s curtains are more expensive than the $31,000 dining room set purchased for the office of Ben Carson, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. …
While Ms. Haley’s curtains were being ordered and installed, Rex W. Tillerson, the administration’s first secretary of state, had frozen hiring, pushed out many of the department’s most senior diplomats and proposed cutting the department’s budget by 31 percent.
Despite overtly agenda-driven reports like these, The New York Times wants its readers to believe it is an objective and bipartisan source of news. A few quick examples of backlash to Lieu, Hogg, and the Times below:
UPDATE: After strong backlash over the deceptive article, the New York Times issued a correction.