President Trump on Saturday celebrated the demise of conservative news magazine The Weekly Standard, a diehard voice of the never-Trump movement that will publish its last issue next week.
“The pathetic and dishonest Weekly Standard, run by failed prognosticator Bill Kristol (who, like many others, never had a clue), is flat broke and out of business. Too bad. May it rest in peace!” tweeted the president.
Clarity Media Group, which publishes The Weekly Standard, announced Friday that it was shuttering the one-time heavyweight of conservative political news and commentary.
Mr. Kristol, who founded the magazine in 1995 with fellow political commentator Fred Barns, became one of the most prominent conservatives to oppose Mr. Trump’s White House run. The magazine continued to vociferously criticize Mr. Trump’s character and his policies once he became president, often lampooning him in caricatures on the magazine cover.
Mr. Kristol responded wryly to the president on twitter, prodding for the social media courtesy of including his Twitter handle: “@ me next time.”
He later tweeted: “All good things come to an end. And so, after 23 years, does The Weekly Standard. I want to express my gratitude to our readers and my admiration for my colleagues. We worked hard to put out a quality magazine, and we had a good time doing so. And we have much more to do. Onward!”
Clarity CEO Ryan McKibben said the magazine had been in decline for years before Mr. Trump’s presidential run.
“The Weekly Standard has been hampered by many of the same challenges that countless other magazines and newspapers across the country have been wrestling with,” he said in a statement. “Despite investing significant resources into the publication, the financial performance of the publication over the last five years – with double-digit declines in its subscriber base all but one year since 2013 – made it clear that a decision had to be made.”
Denver-based Clarity acquired The Weekly Standard in 2009.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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